Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy and assure him that, though Waterford is smaller than Dublin, we have taxis there. I am sure the Minister of State would need one if she was to get back-----

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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It was her knowledge of the geography of Dublin I was referring to.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. I will bring his comments back to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Just before I came down to take this matter, it was being addressed on "Prime Time" tonight so it is getting, I believe rightly, focus.

The regulation of the small public service vehicle, SPSV, sector, is the responsibility of the NTA under the provisions of the Taxi Regulation Act 2013. The number of drivers licensed to operate in Dublin rose by 381 from a total of 14,572 at 31 December 2021 to 14,953 at the end of May 2022. In terms of licensed vehicles, the total number and breakdown by type of SPSV vehicles licensed in Dublin to the end of May 2022 has also shown a small increase of 32 since the beginning of the year, which is a positive sign that drivers are slowly returning to the industry.

Last week, the NTA approved an average increase of 12% on taxi fares from 1 September 2022, as proposed in the recent national maximum fares review, which will be the first increase on such fares since 2017. Increasing taxi fares, particularly the premium fare charged for journeys taken between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. or on Sundays and public holidays, is designed to encourage more taxi drivers to operate during that time, thus increasing availability to passengers nationally.

While the NTA has statutory responsibility for regulating the SPSV industry, taxi drivers are self-employed individuals and, as such, decide on their own business strategies within the regulatory framework. Additionally, SPSV operators choose the times at which they operate. The 2022 SPSV driver survey, conducted by the NTA earlier this year, shows that 93% of drivers are now working but only 29% currently undertake night work. That bears out the point the Deputy has been making. Some 30% of drivers reported that they would consider doing night work if the relevant fares were to increase. In recognition of this, the proposed fare increases have been weighted in favour of the premium rate. The increase in cents and euro for each taxi user per journey is not substantial; however, the cumulative impact will be significant for drivers, and the weighting in the increase has been designed to encourage more drivers to operate, particularly at night, to meet the renewed levels of demand that have arisen because of the increase in social activity and the reactivation of the night-time economy.

The Deputy will be aware that the Minister for Transport and the NTA introduced several supports during the Covid-19 pandemic to reduce the costs for licensed SPSVs to continue in the industry during this difficult period. These included several extensions of the maximum vehicle age on an emergency basis. The NTA also introduced a regulatory measure during Covid to allow licence holders to be inactive for 24 months - previously it was 12 - to allow them to remain attached to the industry with no associated costs during that uncertain time. It is hoped that a significant proportion of these licences will return now that demand for services is increasing.

The SPSV motor tax refund scheme was introduced as an additional financial support to assist the SPSV industry in its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The Minister provided funding of €2 million to the scheme, which commenced on 1 September 2021, ensuring that SPSV licence holders could receive a reimbursement of €95 for their SPSV motor tax. The scheme will end on 31 August 2022.

Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I will certainly bring the Deputy's thoughts and comments back to the Minister. I will touch on the issue of transitioning the fleet. The Department of Transport remains committed to supporting the transition of the SPSV fleet towards zero and low-emission vehicles. It has made funding available to the NTA to provide grants for the provision and conversion of vehicles to make them wheelchair accessible, which is a requirement for new entrants, and a grant is also provided to convert the SPSV fleet to lower-emission and zero-emission vehicles. The number of such grants administered has been encouraging with 780 issued between the beginning of the scheme in 2018 and 2021, notwithstanding the Covid pandemic, with associated funding of €13.7 million provided. A further €15 million in funding was provided in budget 2022. The Minister has said that he is satisfied that the measures taken to date to assist the taxi industry as it emerges from the pandemic should encourage new entrants to the industry - and we are hopeful they will - while also encouraging a significant proportion of inactive licenceholders to return to the industry both nationally and in Dublin city now that the demand for services is again increasing.

In addition to supporting the SPSV industry, the NTA is committed to providing additional bus services that operate on a 24-7 basis as part of the BusConnects programme in our cities. Routes C5 and C6 to Lucan, Maynooth and Celbridge began operating on a 24-hour basis in November 2021, bringing the number of such routes in Dublin city to five. Another one is operating in Cork. A further three will be provided in Dublin this year, one of which, the N4 between Blanchardstown and the Point, commenced operation on 29 May. As funding allows, more will be added each year as the new BusConnects Dublin network is rolled out. Additionally, the Nitelink bus services continue to operate in Dublin over the weekend. In saying that, I take on board everything the Deputy has said. We all have young adult children - well, I certainly do - and we hope that, if they need a taxi at night, they will be in a position to avail of one.