Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate all of the drivers who took the time to take part in the protest yesterday. It highlighted the importance of unity of purpose and action. Like a lot of other Deputies, I have been asking questions of the Government about how we can help the taxi industry to remain viable in the midst of the Covid pandemic. I have to say I am not impressed and, more importantly, taxi drivers have not been impressed with the vague promises. They ask simple questions about safety measures for themselves and their passengers. They wanted a simple ABC to go back to work but that did not seem to register with whoever was answering the questions.

When I put questions to the former Minister with responsibility for transport, Shane Ross, on a possible stimulus package I was given a spiel about the work the Department has done for taxi drivers, such as temporary licence waivers, guidelines for cleaning and interaction with the insurance industry. I do not believe this is any more than the bare minimum of what the Government should have been doing when the industry was so heavily restricted by Covid. Quite frankly, I do not think much has changed since then.

The taxi regulator has been anonymous throughout and this is one of the reasons we need a permanent national public transport forum. A taxi driver told me that the regulator is great at telling taxi drivers what they cannot do but not great at telling them what they can do to continue to operate safely. This seems to be the general message we hear from taxi drivers. Taxis are left without an advocate and with a Government that imposes higher and higher costs of doing business without mutual benefit for drivers in terms of protection or subsidisation in times of extreme crisis such as Covid. It is clear the Government has to do things differently. We now have a living with Covid plan but we have to consider establishing a national public transport forum to produce a long-term strategy for the future and viability of the taxi industry.

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