Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is here as a representative of Government and I would appreciate if she could bring back to the Minister for Transport something critical in Dublin city for two groups of people. They include those who seek a taxi, often at weekends late at night, many of them young people who have not had a chance to go out for the past few years and who are enjoying that great city but cannot get home safely and quickly, which they would be able to do with a functioning industry. It is critical also for an industry that includes drivers. Taxis are public transport. We should protect and work with them to make sure it is an attractive industry for young drivers to enter and for those who have spent their lives working with taxis.

I am worried on two fronts. For some time, prior to and throughout the pandemic, the National Transport Authority, NTA, has operated as a hands-off regulator and has not been working with the industry. It has a taxi advisory group but it is not transparent. Many representative bodies are not represented on it and there is not the full engagement about the future of the industry that is needed. The NTA has not been doing its work and this week, as a result of the shortage of taxis, some of my Government colleagues, including those in Cabinet, have spoken about introducing ride-sharing arrangements, sometimes referred to as Uber but other services are available. That free-for-all deregulation would remove all the protections for many young people, women and people who rely on the safety and knowledge that taxi drivers are vetted and regulated. We cannot go from an over-regulated, micromanaged approach by the NTA to a system of total deregulation of a ride-sharing app. That would be unsafe and bad for customers and drivers.

Weekend after weekend we get stories from people coming in. I know the Minister of State is from Waterford but in Dublin city some of the geography means people walk huge distances. They come out of pubs at 12 midnight or 12.30 a.m. and walk from Camden Street to Dorset Street or have to walk from the city centre to Phibsborough to get taxis. People end up going on longer journeys with friends because they do not want to leave people behind, or people are left walking on their own. We know from experience that none of that is safe. We have seen high-profile cases where people who get into strange cars are incredibly vulnerable.

The Minister for Transport needs to take this by the horns. We need to solve the problem of the shortage with more taxis and we need a better deal for taxi drivers. That is all possible if the NTA rolls up its sleeves and sees itself as part of the solution.

We need a commission on the future of the taxi industry to look at all the challenges, the biggest of which is the ten-year rule. Next year 5,344 cars will be taken off the road because of that rule but the next morning they can operate as limousines and they can also operate as limousines on some of the apps because of an anomaly in deregulation, one of many such anomalies. We should be open to listen to the taxi industry and to consumers. This is not something apart from the important issues of our city. It is core to the running of our city and to having a healthy night-time economy, which is important.

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