Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

However, what we say at the committee gets amplified and commented on. We can also make recommendations to the Department. We can bring others in and challenge them on issues so at least we take things further. As I have seen over the years, there is nothing to help and promote the taxi industry. Taxi drivers are individual licenceholders. There must be competition although there is not really when all of the limits are set. How can we ensure that the industry is around in ten or 15 years' time if the Government policy is to reduce the number of cars on the roads?

A modal shift has been sought for decades in terms of the amount of public transport, of which the taxi industry is an integral part. We are reducing public transport fees on buses and we have to increase taxi fares because otherwise the industry is not sustainable. I have a different approach because I believe that we should make it easier and cheaper for taxis to operate but with State support and not making things more expensive, so that we keep the price of taxi fares down for punters. We have talked about this issue elsewhere and the delegation mentioned that the hotel industry is part of the talking shop. The hotels are pricing themselves out of the market with what they are at and only very wealthy people can now afford them. At present Garth Books has a series of concerts and people want to attend them in Dublin. The taxi drivers help concert goers to get to the venue after people have travelled by train or parked their cars somewhere. People are deciding to return home after the concerts because it is cheaper for four or five people to get someone to drive them up from County Clare, for example, than stay in a hotel but such a situation is crazy. We have got to look at the future sustainability and viability of the taxi business, and everything should be on the table.