Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the chance to speak on the Taxi Regulation Bill. The starting point in discussing the Bill is to say the situation in the taxi industry is a very powerful example of the utter bankruptcy of the free market deregulation ideology which Mary Harney, Bobby Molloy and their Fianna Fáil counterparts were responsible for applying with such dire consequences. It is worth noting in terms of certain larger economic questions just how disastrous it was. The whole principle behind certain free market thinking is that it is an efficient way to allocate resources and match supply and demand. There could be no more powerful example of how that is rubbish than what has happened to the taxi industry.

Of course, when deregulation was introduced, there was a shortage of taxis, no one disputes that. There were 2,000 taxis in Dublin at the time of deregulation and I well remember as a teenager wandering for hours around the city trying to find a taxi to get to Dún Laoghaire and often having to walk home. There is no disputing, even by taxi drivers, that there was a real problem that had to be addressed but my God, did we go from one extreme to the other in double quick time. We went from 2,000 taxis in Dublin to the current figure of 13,000 taxis. There are now more taxis in Dublin than there are in New York. That is astonishing. We only have to wander down O'Connell Street or Dame Street at the weekend now to see a sea of taxis sitting in ranks for hours on end with frustrated and desperate drivers wondering what the point is and if they will be able to pay their bills and put food on the table. It is an unbelievable failure of policy in the first place by the Progressive Democrats and Fianna Fáil and, subsequently, a dire failure of regulation of the industry.

In the first instance, it has made life extraordinarily difficult for full-time taxi drivers to make a living. As other speakers have mentioned, it raises serious questions about health and safety for users of taxis, such is the free-for-all that has ensued since deregulation of the taxi industry, with widespread evidence of people working in the industry who are completely non-compliant with insurance regulations and so on and drivers double jobbing, working full-time jobs then driving a taxi at night, which is putting the safety of passengers at serious risk.

The Minister of State mentioned the suitability of people working as taxi drivers and this is a major focus of the legislation. It is right and proper that there should be vetting, so that is another area although people have rightly pointed to complexities that must be addressed.

I do not want to over-exaggerate the crisis facing taxi drivers but it is a damning indictment of what has happened to the taxi industry that deregulation combined with the economic crisis saw a terrifying peak in suicides among taxi drivers, with drivers so desperate at their plight that 33 of them have taken their own lives in a two-year period. We can add to that figure many deaths from heart attacks. It is a fact that those who drive for a living, whether they drive buses or taxis, are one of the groups most likely to die of heart attacks. There is a stereotype of high powered executives in stressful jobs dying of heart attacks.

In fact, professional drivers of taxis or buses are one of the groups most vulnerable to that health threat because of the nature of and stress involved in their job. Those have been the fairly awful consequences of deregulation and the subsequent impact of the economic crisis. In that regard, I think everybody breathes a sigh of relief that the Government is bringing forward this legislation and has made attempts to engage with the different stakeholders in the taxi sector to address the issues.

However, the taxi drivers to whom I have spoken, primarily the National Private Hire and Taxi Association, NPHTA, and Tiománaí Tacsaí na hÉireann, have expressed considerable concerns. We should take them seriously. I note the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, is smiling. Obviously, he has been engaged more in the process than I have.

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