Mr. Kevin Barrett:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for inviting me. I am a representative of the Taxi Alliance of Ireland, operating in County Tipperary and I have worked in the industry for nearly 30 years. I will bring some of the issues forward to the Chairman.

There are a large number of illegal operators throughout the country. In the past 12 months, we have had success in catching some of these individuals with the help of the Garda and National Transport Authority, NTA, enforcement officers. However, many of these illegal operators continue to work as the Garda and the NTA do not have the resources to catch all of them. One way to resolve this issue is the establishment of a transport police with the powers to deal with this issue and the resources to deal with this problem on a permanent basis. In order for more people to join the taxi industry, especially in rural Ireland, these illegal operators need to be dealt with immediately before we lose more drivers. For example, a person was caught six months ago, taken to court and prosecuted, got a €200 fine and was operating the night after. That has to be stopped.

Another issue I will bring to the attention of the committee is the buy-back of taxi plates. We need to make this process easier to engage in to recruit more taxi drivers to the industry, . At present, if a driver retires or leaves the industry, the driver cannot transfer his or her small public service vehicle, SPSV, plate to another individual. If a transfer of plate and other business areas such as phone and cars were easier, it would entice people to join the industry.

To provide more SPSV operators available for closing time of pubs and nightclubs, we need to get the committee to consider asking the Licensed Vintners Association to come forward with a proposal to stagger the closing times of these establishments. This would reduce the number of people looking for taxis all at once at peak times on the weekends. It would also reduce stress on taxi drivers trying to provide a service as they can become overwhelmed with people trying to get taxis at those peak times.

The Taxi Alliance of Ireland is a voluntary organisation to help the SPSV industry for urban and rural Ireland. We want to our industry to be as professional as any other industry in our country. The committee should feel free to ask me any issues about the above issues.