Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Amendment No. 50 in my name deals with the issue of bundling, which is dealt with in the section concerning the transfer of licences, a subject in which the Acting Chairman has an interest. We are very nervous about the transfer of licences following our experience in the taxi industry. As a spokesperson on transport and a member of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, in trying to invigilate the transport sector and the Commission for Taxi Regulation, I have seen that perhaps one of the worst features of that market is transferability, because it makes it very difficult to keep tabs on who is in the industry. One gets a plethora of complaints from decent operators who work morning, noon and night trying to make a living in the taxi business.

Looking at the issue across the industry and in the bus sector, where there is the possibility of a transfer of a licence, the licence might be for a specific period and it might be possible to review it. However, the basic idea is that a service is operated so that commuters get a particular licensed route, for example, from Tullow, County Carlow to Dublin. Somewhere along the line, however, the company operating the service will no longer be doing so and a separate company will have come in, with the licence being effectively transferred. This is an area the NTA would need to watch carefully.

A nightmare situation has developed in the taxi industry which should not be replicated. On that basis, I would have liked to delete section 18. The Minister of State may claim there could be cases where companies are in difficulty and so on — the death of a licence holder was dealt with in the previous amendment — but, in general terms, I stand over the point I have made. This is an important issue given the difficulties in the taxi industry, with which the Acting Chairman is familiar. I urge the Minister of State to think again about transfers.

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