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

For the Government's roadmap on Covid-19 to be effective and gain public support it needs to be clear, consistent, to make sense and to embrace the principle of fairness and all of us being in it together. To date, the Government's measures and proposals have failed on those counts. The signs are that today's announcements from the Government are failing in that regard.

I want to focus on one key aspect, which is the fairness principle or the idea that we are all in this together. If we do not take all our society with us, and particularly those who are affected by measures and health restrictions, everything will unravel.

One of the affected groups, which I have mentioned repeatedly to the Taoiseach, has come out today in record numbers in a socially distant, masked protest in individual cars. These are the taxi drivers and their protest reached from Ballyfermot to Merrion Square. It is the biggest taxi protest ever. These people used to make their livelihood on the road but there is no roadmap for them. There is no respect or fairness and the Government is ignoring them. Their incomes and livelihoods have been decimated while they accept that the restrictions have affected their industry.

Whereas others have got support in order to keep them in employment, keep up incomes and keep businesses viable, taxi drivers have got nothing. They have been placed between a rock and hard place. They can stay on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, which the Government is going to cut, but many of these people are vulnerable and over 66. Otherwise they can go back to work and lose all the pandemic unemployment payment when a fraction of their previous income is available. We can think about everything on which they depend and which is affected by the restrictions. They include international travel, gigs, theatres, social gatherings and taking people from pubs and nightclubs. Everything on which they rely to make an income is gone or drastically reduced, and nothing has been given back.

As people on the protest today have said, they are not cars; they are mothers, fathers, sons and people with mortgages or rent to pay. They are a vital part of our public transport system, which the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Eamon Ryan, does not seem to understand. They bring people to hospital and politicians to RTÉ. They respond where there are no bus routes and at unsocial hours. They are a vital part of our public transport system.

They are asking for an income subsidy if they return to work. They are asking that no cut be made to their PUP if they feel they cannot go to work, particularly if they are over 66. They are asking for grants to cover ongoing costs, which run to approximately €11,000 per year, even if they do nothing to keep their car on the road. They are asking for the ten-year replacement rule for vehicles to go to 12 years because they do not have an income that allows them to replace their cars. They are asking the Government to stop issuing new licences when there is not enough work for the taxi drivers that are out there. They are asking that there be no question of the threat of the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, to remove them from quality bus corridors and bus lanes being pushed through. This would absolutely kick them when they are down. I ask the Taoiseach to respond to the requests of the taxi drivers.

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