Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy. I recognise that Covid-19 has had a profound impact on small businesses across the country, with the public transport sector being especially affected as public health restrictions have necessarily discouraged people from travelling generally. Taxi and other small public service vehicle operators, who are particularly dependent on the hospitality and tourism sectors, have faced a particularly pronounced drop in demand and real challenges and difficulties in the last year.

It is in recognition of these difficulties that the Government has introduced a wide-ranging programme of supports with broad eligibility criteria for individuals and businesses which have been adversely affected by Covid-19.

Many of these supports can be accessed by self-employed taxi drivers, including liquidity and investment measures, from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, as well as the enterprise support grant and the pandemic unemployment payment from the Department of Social Protection. Self-employed recipients of the PUP, like small public service vehicle, SPSV, drivers, can also avail of the self-employment income scheme which provides for an income disregard for the first €960 earned in a given eight-week period.

I remain committed to supporting the transition of the SPSV sector towards zero-low-emission vehicles and I have increased the funding available to the electric SPSV grant scheme from €1 million in 2020 to €15 million this year. Furthermore, in view of the particular challenges faced by operators of older vehicles, I have doubled the amount payable under the scheme to €20,000 for operators who scrap older vehicles and make the switch to fully electric models. Additional amounts are available for those switching to vehicles which are both electric and wheelchair accessible. There has been a strong interest in the revised scheme since its launch earlier in the year, with over 200 applications received to date. I believe that for many drivers there is a strong financial as well as environmental case to switch to such electric vehicles. Operators of electric vehicles enjoy the benefits of lower running costs, lower tolls under the low emissions vehicle toll incentive and can use dedicated SPSV electric charging infrastructure at key transport hubs such as major airports and railway stations.

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