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

While the proposed declaration is not highly objectionable in itself, it seems tokenistic. The taxi drivers are saying that the problem with proper regulation of the industry is enforcement - that not enough NTA staff are going around and doing checks to catch rogue drivers who are not compliant in a whole series of ways. This is of deep concern to bona fide taxi drivers. The declaration looks tokenistic and decorative, given that it is an undertaking to do things that drivers have to do legally anyway. Instead, we should put resources into enforcement. Some taxi drivers made a simple proposal to me that there should be an emergency number for taxi drivers so that they can call the enforcement people if they suspect somebody is not compliant in some way. Such simple, practical measures, which involve a little more resources, would be better than decorative measures that will make no difference.

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