Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At the outset I thank the Sinn Féin Party and, in particular, Deputy Darren O'Rourke, for their excellent work in bringing this very important issue to the floor of the House. They deserve to be complimented. This is a very important matter and affects every constituency, town, village, by-road and section of society because our taxi and hackney drivers and bus operators have served us well over many decades. They are suffering and enduring a very difficult time because the supply of business to them has gone down enormously with the absence of night life in our towns and villages. They are still there and we want them to be there in the future.

Yesterday’s protest had a particular purpose. I compliment everybody who took part in that protest, including the taxi representatives from County Kerry, the county I represent. Taxi drivers from Cordal, Castleisland, Tralee, Killarney, Kenmare or Kilgarvan and the hackney drivers from all those areas have served us well, including in Dingle town where they have been doing excellent work over many decades. They all came here yesterday to make their voices heard in the Houses of the Oireachtas and they had a very clear message. They want to see a situation where their businesses will survive this crisis and that in the future we will have a taxi service that will be up and running and operating in all the areas I named in my county as well as throughout the country. If people are socialising or going to work, whether it is locals or tourists, we want the service to be there.

I dealt with a very large number of taxi drivers who were in real trouble during the height of the lockdown. Many were able to secure payments but many others for different reasons were not or were cut off the payment and now find themselves going off the edge of a cliff in the next couple of days. I want to ensure the Government realises that. I wish the Minister of State well in this role, and I really mean that. It is no good crying about this afterwards. We have to create a situation where the measures that need to be put in place to safeguard the future livelihoods of our hard-working taxi service are put in place. I thank the taxi drivers for coming here yesterday as I know this was not easy-----

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