Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I wish her luck in her position as well. I acknowledge the kind remarks from Deputies on my appointment as Minister of State. I am standing in today for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Eamon Ryan.

I thank the proposers of this motion and all those who have contributed to this important and timely debate on an important issue. I take the point that the protest yesterday was a large and reluctant protest. People have said that a lot of discussion went on over many months and it was the culmination of understandable frustration that brought people onto the streets yesterday. It has been said that these issues cannot get concluded and resolved in one debate here and will have to be watched closely and carefully from here on in as we progress through living with Covid-19. There are sectors of the economy which will be more impacted than others. When I met officials from IDA Ireland yesterday, I was told that some sectors of the economy, such as some of the multinationals, are doing quite well but the other three quarters of the Irish economy, including home-grown businesses, sole traders like taxi drivers and small businesses, are affected more gravely and deeply than some other areas. This is an issue that has to get special attention on an ongoing basis as we work through this crisis.

The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, met the taxi representatives last week to discuss issues and concerns of their members and it was a constructive meeting. He undertook to raise the issues discussed at the meeting with the NTA. This pandemic has drawn into relief the important role of essential workers. Transport is one of those areas and taxi drivers are key workers in the front line who bring people to and from hospitals, schools, airports, businesses and other locations.

Many Members have been critical today of the levels of support available to the taxi and SPSV operators, but as my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, outlined earlier, from the very start of the pandemic the NTA has recognised the impact this crisis has had on those operators and has been providing support and assistance accordingly. At the very outset of the pandemic, the NTA extended licences to ensure no licences expired from 13 March until 12 June. It extended the vehicle age limits and waived the licence renewal fees. It worked with the insurance industry to ensure the operators who decided to stop working could suspend their insurance cover, thereby reducing a very large cost which taxi and SPSV operators face on an ongoing basis.

The NTA has been in ongoing contact with everybody in the industry. There have been tens of thousands of emails directly to the operator and there have been 150,000 text messages, so there are a lot of people in the NTA making sure there is good communication with the people directly involved in the sector, and more than 7,000 individual emails have been given to operators about individual queries. It is fine to issue a broad press release but the individual operator is the person who counts. The NTA handled in excess of 63,000 phone calls from the people concerned, so there is as reasonable a flow of information as could be expected in this pandemic when the restrictions on people being present in the office are considered.

The Government also ensured SPSV operators have been able to access the measures announced under the July stimulus to the fullest extent possible. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, for giving an excellent summary of these to the House earlier. I highlight that as part of the July stimulus, the income tax relief for self-employed individuals allows taxi drivers and other SPSV operators to reduce the income tax payable on last year's profits using losses incurred this year. This is an important measure and should benefit the cash flow of all self-employed individuals, especially taxi drivers. It is also more than that, as it actually allows a refund and a positive cash flow. As such, where a taxi driver, like many people, would have paid his or her preliminary tax last autumn, which would probably have been 90% or nearly 100% of his or her total tax due for this year, and now know that taxi driver is in a loss for this year, he or she can get a refund of some of the money paid last year. Thus it is a real, serious cash flow benefit this year. It also means they do not have to pay tax although they may make a profit this year, because they can use the loss this year against the profits they made and the income tax they paid last year and they can get a refund on that, which is a benefit here specifically.

The cost of PPE equipment, the kitting-out of taxis and whether screens are required has been raised. I again highlight the Covid-19 enterprise support grant. This is a payment from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection which is available to self-employed individuals, including many small service operators, who are not liable for commercial rates. Earlier in the year, most of the reliefs for small business required a person to be a ratepayer. This is a small grant but it is a cash flow grant and it does help people. It can be used against the cost of screens or PPE for taxis and is available through the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and is for people who are not paying rates. We have seen it extended to the bed and breakfast sector in recent days as well. We are looking at individual sectors have not come into the area of grants to give some assistance, which I accept is small, but it is some assistance and will help people on a short-term basis.

The issue of the moratorium on SPSV licences has been raised by a number of Members. Everyone knows that the Government has not exercised quantitative controls on the number of taxi licences for over two decades. Many of us who are old enough to remember and were in Dublin at the time recall the difficulty of getting taxis at night because the numbers were restricted. It was not fair to the public or to the taxi drivers and it was a bad service at that time. Those controls were removed and I am a little bit surprised that people are saying that it would be a help to reintroduce them. I understand the point because the business is not there for those already in the taxi business and the idea of new people coming in may not seem right, but reintroducing controls is not something the Government would be supportive of. More important, however, and it goes without saying based on what has been said here, there are few or no new applicants for new public service licences in any event. It is an interesting point but a moot one because nobody is rushing to get into the industry, based on what people have said here and the truth of the situation. I understand the point to an extent but it is a moot one when one considers the reality of it.

The issues of taxis and bus lanes was also mentioned. There is absolutely no question of any change to that because they are part of providing public transport 24-7, unlike the trains, buses and the Luas, although some buses around the country operate on a 24-hour basis. There is no question of changing the rules on the bus lanes.

The issue of the age limits on vehicles was also mentioned. One measure taken by the NTA to reduce the burden on operators was to extend the age limits for vehicle renewals from March until the remainder of this year. As the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, outlined earlier, these limits are in place for sound, well-grounded reasons because everyone knows vehicles of a high standard are needed. That is important and nobody has disputed that here. Nevertheless, the NTA recognises that an operator would be placed in a difficult financial position if he or she was required to replace his or her vehicle right now in the middle of the present pandemic. For this reason, the authority has extended the age limit for vehicles due for renewal this year and it has pledged to continue to monitor the situation and consider the need for any future extension closer to the time. That is fair and practical. We cannot be extending it just like that for a two-year period. We have done it for this year and we will review it, and if necessary it will be looked at and considered next year, but it is not necessary to do so now. Nobody has an immediate issue or difficulty as we speak with that renewal, and when the time comes, it will be looked at again, and if need be I hope that the NTA will repeat the extension it has already done. That is a practical and sensible way to approach this rather than changing the rules for the long term because we will get back onto those issues as well.

I am conscious that it has been stated that 24% of taxi drives are over 66 years of age, and in that situation they would be on the State pension and would not have got the Covid payment. That is an issue that has been raised but we all know and understand from our daily work that, with the exception of the carer's allowance, a person cannot draw two social protection payments, in this case the State pension and another payment connected with unemployment. That has been the way we have operated and it is a bigger issue if people want to got down that particular route.

The Taoiseach said yesterday that the Government is also considering how the pandemic unemployment payment could be combined with other measures that would enable individuals working in sectors where the level of activity is much lower than it would have been prior to the onset of Covid-19 to earn additional income without losing the basic pandemic unemployment payment. In light of that particular remark, we are not in a position to accept the Sinn Féin motion on behalf of the Government and we call on the House to support the countermotion proposed by the Government.

See this speech in context