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

I want to raise a specific issue in the climate transition, which is the situation facing our taxi and other public service vehicle drivers. There are approximately 20,000 people whose livelihoods depend on cars. They understand and they are quite happy that the future will be electric for taxi drivers but they have a big problem. An electric vehicle costs a lot of money - between €60,000 and €80,000. The maximum grants available offer between €20,000 and €25,000. The same drivers have lost pretty much two years of income and opportunity to save because of Covid-19. For thousands of them, their vehicles will no longer be licensable at the end of this year. Some of them are not licensable already because they have gone over the ten-year limit. They do not have the money to buy a new EV and because of the ten-year rule on taxis, they are out of business. However, it is important to note that those cars will stay on the road, but just not as taxis.

The ten-year rule does not do anything for the climate. It does not do anything to reduce the number of polluting vehicles on the road. It simply puts taxi drivers out of a livelihood. They are asking for an extension of the ten-year rule because apart from anything else, and this is another critical point, there are no EVs for them to buy or very few that are suitable for taxis.

They are asking for an extension of the ten-year rule to give them the time to accumulate savings to purchase the EVs and to make the transition to an electric taxi fleet. Obviously, additional grants and support beyond what is currently available would also be helpful. There should also be time for the EVs to come on stream, because at the moment they are not there. That is a plea on behalf of the taxi drivers. It is very real and tangible. They deserve a just transition and that extension should be given.

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