John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----because he will find out how the Government is operating and how the public feel.

It is important to have strong legislation to deal with the rights of the public, because a good and available taxi service is important. Many taxi drivers find it difficult to make ends meet because of the saturation of supply. I do not know how the Minister of State can deal with this because, while the Indecon report stated there is saturation of supply, it did not recommend a cap on the number of taxis available in future. Perhaps we can tease this out on Committee Stage. Perhaps a cap should be introduced to protect the income of taxi drivers.

An area the Minister of State needs to examine is that of taxi ranks. In Dublin there is a lot of aggression from some of the taxi drivers on the rank, and it is not necessarily of their own making. Taxi drivers seem to jump the queue or do not get into order. In places such as Brussels and London, the taxi ranks at the airports have taxi marshals directing people to the next taxi. Perhaps the larger taxi ranks in Dublin should have a taxi marshal system so these flare-ups and rows do not occur. They look bad, particularly when people from abroad see this carry-on. I do not know how it would be funded, but it is an issue which should be examined. Perhaps it could be funded through taxi drivers themselves or another method. We need to consider this on Committee Stage.

The issue of ten year old cars has been raised with me, in rural areas as well as urban areas. The Minister of State wants to take cars aged over nine years or older off the road. Some nine year old cars and older, such as Mercedes and Jaguars, are in top-class condition and many of them are far better than some of the smaller cars which are only three or four years old. This needs to be examined, and I ask the Minister of State to seriously consider deleting this proposal from the legislation. Taxi drivers are working longer hours than ever to make a living, and incomes have dropped across the board because of the increased number of taxis. We should consider an immediate cap on issuing new taxi licences.

This is the right decision for the industry and, in particular, for taxi drivers in Dublin where there is an over-supply of taxis at present. We need a taxi service that is affordable, accessible and provides good quality for the public. There has been a significant increase in the number of taxis since deregulation in 2000 and the numbers are currently over-subscribed.

I have a bugbear about taxi services for people with disabilities. Even though some taxis are entitled to carry such people and are suitably adapted to do so, some taxi drivers do not want to carry people in wheelchairs or whose mobility is otherwise impaired. I have a daughter who suffers from a disability and is wheelchair-bound. On a number of occasions she and her friends have been refused fares by taxis and hackneys for some unknown reason, even though they have the capacity to carry people with disabilities. Maybe it is because of the hardship of putting a wheelchair in a car boot, but some taxis are not user-friendly towards people with disabilities. The Minister of State should examine that matter.

The safety of the public must be paramount in all our deliberations, which is why I welcome the Bill. People getting into a taxi must feel they are safe, and this applies especially to women and the elderly of both sexes. I do not wish to be sexist but we have read newspaper reports about women being attacked in taxis. The Bill before us should clean up this aspect and ensure they are not subject to any undesirable elements from the taxi industry.

Taxi companies have told me that when they want to take on extra staff, they find it very difficult to obtain Garda vetting clearance. I have also come across this problem when nursing homes want to employ staff. They may apply for Garda clearance at the vetting office in Tipperary, but it can take a long time before such clearance is forthcoming. Employers want to take on staff, so this system should be speeded up. I have raised the matter in parliamentary questions to the Minister for Justice and Equality. Perhaps it is time to have the vetting process done in local Garda stations. Most of the time, local gardaí will know the exact status of the person who is applying for clearance. However, when people apply to Tipperary, the application must be referred to the person's local Garda station. Once the local Garda authorities have cleared the person, or refused to grant clearance, the application must be returned to Tipperary again before the applicant is notified of the result. There is a lot of bureaucratic red tape involved which is militating against job creation. The process should be streamlined and speeded up because the current system is unacceptable.

The Bill prohibits the transfer of taxi licences but I feel the concerns of taxi drivers' representatives, as expressed in a submission to the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, on this prohibition are valid. Single licence plate holders should be treated differently from those holding multiple plates. Some single licence holders operate their taxis in conjunction with their wives, sons or daughters. In the event of anything untoward happening to a single licence holder, the family would also be put out of work under the proposed measure. I doubt if the Minister of State present, Deputy Sherlock, or his colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Kelly, would want that to happen. This point should be re-examined on Committee Stage because single licence plate holders should be entitled to transfer a taxi licence to their spouse or child, particularly when a family is solely dependent on that income.

I am also concerned about some aspects of the taxi trade, particularly where drivers who are trying to join a taxi rank, are set to be penalised if they are waiting adjacent to the rank. There should be some flexibility in this regard. One often sees a full taxi rank but a driver may pull up two or three places back. They will now be penalised, but that proposal needs to be examined.

In general, the Bill is welcome. It is ten years since the last taxi regulation legislation but the industry has moved on in the meantime. Taxis are now operating not only in major urban centres but also in rural areas. The Indecon report recommended having two strands of taxi regulation, one for cities and large towns, and a different one for rural areas. Rural Ireland is becoming a problem area in the sense that new drink-driving regulations have created many problems, including those associated with isolation. Like myself, the Minister of State comes from a rural area and he knows there is a tremendous amount of isolation in remote areas. Perhaps we could work with the business community, including publicans, as well as Muintir na Tíre and other community groups to see how a system could be introduced to allow people to get to the local pub, hall or community centre at weekends. In that way, they could enjoy a drink in comfort and be able to rely on some form of transport system to get them home. That debate is for another time and place, however.

I hope the Bill will be passed as quickly as possible. This side of the House will table some amendments to deal with areas of the legislation that, as I have outlined, need to be re-examined. I am sure the Minister and Minister of State will look favourably on some of the Opposition amendments. We feel they would improve the legislation. While none of us has a monopoly on wisdom as regards how legislation should be implemented, I imagine the Government will accept some of our amendments if they can improve the Bill.

I wish the legislation a speedy passage through the Dáil. When it is enacted, we will hopefully have a better taxi service, not alone in the major towns and cities but also throughout the country. As a result, the interests of the travelling public will be protected while taxi drivers can earn a decent living for themselves and their families.

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