Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have been in considerable communication with a number of taxi drivers. The petitioner is a member of the National Private Hire & Taxi Association, NPHTA, which is one of the largest taxi driver representative organisations. They are annoyed over the manner in which this tariff change has been implemented and they have cause to be. There were protests about this a while ago because they say the change to tariff C, which relates to long journeys outside the normal locale of a driver for which there is a higher charge because they are not allowed to pick up outside their normal locale, would affect them adversely. They also have to have their meters recalibrated and resealed and so on, which is a cost to them. They had not asked for this and they are not happy. They feel the majority of taxi drivers are opposed to this and the public consultation process relating to this was inadequate. The National Transport Authority, NTA, in the correspondence dealing with the petition, said that it followed the rules of the public consultation and submissions process but the drivers say that while that may be the case, it is an inadequate process. There may have been many other submissions but they point out, for example, that they alone submitted a petition signed by 500 taxi drivers opposing this change. They say the majority of taxi drivers oppose it and they do not believe these submissions were adequately taken on board or treated seriously by the NTA in making its decision to change the tariffs.

In my experience, their concerns have been borne out because I tabled a parliamentary question on their behalf to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to view the public submissions on this to see what they said and I asked whether the NTA took on board the views of stakeholders. The NTA wrote back to me and said it would not give that information because it is not the authority's practice to do this and it is not required to do so. That is unacceptable. In many other processes which involve public consultation, we can read the submissions, objections and so on and we are able to adjudicate in an open and transparent way whether the statutory body or group is taking stakeholders seriously. If we believe in public consultation and participation and democratic revolutions and all that stuff, then what the stakeholders say should be taken seriously. It appears that has not been the case here. We do not even know what the story is because the NTA will not tell us.

There is a problem in that the petitioner is asking us to retain tariff C. We probably cannot do that but it is within our remit to examine the public consultation process and whether it is adequate and whether changes need to be made in the context of transparency and accountability. We should ask the petitioner to resubmit his petition, foregrounding the issue of the inadequacy of the public consultation process, the lack of transparency and the need to have a better, more transparent process. That would us give the opportunity to examine the issue and hear the different sides of the argument.