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

I appreciate the Minister of State outlining some of the changes but my experience of representing many taxi drivers during the pandemic was that we treated them totally differently from other businesses. They had to use savings or their €350 pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, to cover business costs. In every other industry, with very generous and important supports such as wage subsidy schemes and rates rebates, we funded the costs of industry, but we did not for vehicle-bases services, including the taxi industry.

The problem is we now expect those 3,500 taxi drivers to buy a new car, which is a once-in-a-decade investment, after two years of almost no business. A bank manager would be mad to give a loan to anybody in those circumstances.

The Minister for Transport wants to decarbonise the fleet and so do I. It is one of the important ways we can show electric vehicles can be part of the change to decarbonisation but we have a silly anomaly whereby the person has to borrow the entire amount to replace the car and subsequently reclaim the grant they will be given. There is no way for them to bridge that finance but it would be better to allow them to pay the balance and allow the garage to claim the grant directly, reducing the costs. That is one example of how the ten-year rule is not working.

The NTA has to look at this very obvious problem in respect of grants for electric vehicles. It is a problem to which there is a solution, one that would make things easier for taxi drivers. As I said, this is about getting a better deal for taxi drivers so that we can get more taxis on the road. I ask the Minister of State to bring back to the Cabinet my warning against the introduction of ride-sharing. It is unsafe and unfair on the industry. In my view, it is a headline-grabbing attempt to solve a problem when the real solution is to roll up our sleeves and work with the industry and consumers to resolve it.

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