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

I have questioned the Taoiseach and appealed to him extensively, including today, on matters relating to taxi drivers and the public transport system. As we discussed earlier, there was a major protest involving taxi drivers today. The Taoiseach has expressed sympathy but has not given a clear commitment. When will he make a decision on the key demands being made by taxi drivers, because they are desperate? They are incurring debts and have virtually no income. They do not know whether to stay on the reducing pandemic unemployment payment or go back to work, where they cannot possibly make a living, and lose all that payment. Insurance costs, repayments, licence renewals fees, car maintenance, fuel and all these costs and debts meanwhile are clocking up. When will the Taoiseach make a decision on their central request, which is for an income subsidy to allow them a baseline income on top of which they can earn money, knowing that until we have health restrictions lifted, they will not have the capacity to fully make their living. The same question applies to the arts, music and live entertainment workers. They need to get an answer to this central request.

With regard to the taxi drivers, there are some measures that would not even cost anything. Stopping the issuing of new taxi licences would cost the Government nothing, as would extending the ten-year replacement rule to 12 years. Getting rid of the taxi advisory committee, which is completely discredited, and replacing it with a national taxi transport forum, with proper representation for taxi drivers so that they could actually be heard from, would cost nothing. When will get answers to such matters?

The 50% capacity rule on public transport, along with the fact that many people do not want to use it because they are frightened, has led to a problem and we need to increase capacity in public transport dramatically. We have some of that capacity with private buses and our taxi friends, who have no work. What will we do to increase public transport capacity given the 50% restriction on capacity?

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