Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being with us today. All the workers who contributed to the response to Covid-19 have been thanked. We should do that today. As trade union officials, they have represented the people at the front line of the pandemic early on. I will turn to public transport shortly but, by virtue of their self-employment, taxi drivers have been forgotten in the response to this pandemic. The new Government needs to get to grips with this. It needs to listen, first, to how the pandemic has impacted taxi drivers and, second, how that industry can respond. I welcome the presence of the witnesses today.

I wish to talk about the correspondence their organisations have had with the Government on face masks. Have they received any assurances that the situation may change? Perhaps Mr. Macken can answer that.