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

Okay. The same argument that I made for the musicians and the crews, who I want to emphasise are behind the musicians, applies to the taxi drivers. The taxi drivers' income is either non-existent because is not worth going out on the road or, for those who go out on the road, is down approximately 70%. They have repayments on their cars. How are they supposed to make them? A taxi driver has to put fuel in his or her car to drive around the city looking for non-existent fares. How are they supposed to pay for that? How are they supposed to pay their insurance? The Minister has got to give them an answer. The pandemic unemployment payment, which I acknowledge the Government made changes to, is not enough to cover their ongoing costs.

The reason CRSS was brought in, and is being given to businesses, is that the Government knows the huge numbers of businesses it is giving money to cannot meet their bills for maintenance, rent, insurance and repayments. The Government acknowledged that point but for some inexplicable reason, it denies it to a group such as the taxi drivers who carry those same costs, the only difference being that a taxi driver's premises is his or her taxi. It is a moving premises, but it is the taxi driver's place of work. The taxi is what the taxi driver has invested in in order to have his or her small business as a sole trader. I do not see how it is difficult to tweak the scheme to allow their inclusion and allow them to sustain themselves until things get back to where they were.

I have made the argument. I would like to hear the Minister justify it. It would not cost much to do this but, God Almighty, it would remove much stress, pressure and hardship from 23,000 taxi drivers and their families, and the same goes for the musicians and the crew.

See this speech in context