Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not know whether any recommendation will be successful but we must make it in the context of public transport. We are reducing the cost of going on a bus. Nobody is expected to pay a fare on a bus commensurate with the cost of running the bus which is what we must consider. If one did then it would cost a lot more to travel even short distances and I presume it would cost €20 to travel the short distance from here to Donnybrook.

The taxi industry works and provides a fantastic service. My town of Ennis does not have a bus service but there are good Local Link services in the rural areas. Every week, taxi men bring elderly people, who are on a low income, to the shop and back. These drivers do a tremendous job. Nobody gets rich by doing such work and the challenges they face increase every year because of regulation. I am not saying that we do not need regulation; we do but alongside regulation, we need an element of the State agencies to be examining how to protect and preserve the sector. For a long time we depended on people from outside of the State who worked for very little money because of where they had come from themselves and they got us through a period.

Many of them have now left. They have moved on with their lives and are not prepared to do that anymore. We are now back to the same situation again where there is not a viable opportunity for people to come into the industry. No one needs a lecture on this committee about the cost of property, rents and so on. One would not have a hope of making a living as a taxi driver. I can understand it when Mr. Cooley says that his will be the last generation in his family to drive a taxi.