David Norris (Independent)

Many Members have spoken about the very difficult economic situation in which we find ourselves. It would be useful for the House to take up a couple of examples of this. I have from time to time indicated some of these, particularly in the context of the abolition of the Combat Poverty Agency and various other agencies, but I will not go on about this again. However, I wish to deal with two examples on which I ask the Leader to consider having a debate.

The first example is that of taxis. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am now reliant on taxis when I am not able to walk because of the weather and so on. I make it a practice never to take a taxi off the rank for a short journey. I wait some way away from the rank and hail a taxi because I consider it very unfair when people wait a long time and I simply would not do it.

I often get taxis from O'Connell Street to Leinster House. Two days ago, on a beautiful morning like this with perfectly fine weather and the sun shining, one of the taxi men called me and asked me if I knew the Westin Hotel on Westmoreland Street. I told him I did and that I could practically see the hotel from where I stood. He told me that the hotel was where his passenger, a young, fit woman, had asked him to take her — from the Gresham Hotel to the Westin Hotel on perfectly good day.

I told this story to the taxi driver I used this morning to do some other messages. He told me about the place known as the Kesh where the taxis are held at Dublin Airport before being moved up to the airport in small groups. This man had been waiting two hours before he was moved up. A young executive woman with her laptop came out from the arrivals area and asked him to take her to Cloghran House, which is the headquarters of the Dublin Airport Authority. It is visible from where she was standing and is about as far as from here to the Merrion Street gate of Leinster House. He asked her whether she knew where it was and she replied: "I know exactly where it is. Take me." He agreed because he is required to. The fare indicator did not move. The minimum fare is €4.10 and that is what he got. She proffered a €5 note and held out her hand for the 90 cent change.

I appeal to the public to have some consideration at this time. The driver of another taxi I took yesterday, a very decent young man, has not paid his mortgage in three and half months and is in fear of what is happening to his family, including three small children.

The industry is not properly regulated so there is a flood of taxis. It is good that we are able to get taxis so easily but some of the incoming population, for example, are exempt from the requirement to know where the routes are — they simply do not know. This is the sort of issue that should be brought to the attention of the Minister and I ask the Leader to do that in advance of this debate. Last week, I got a taxi outside Leinster House and asked to be taken to North Great George's Street. I told the driver it was North Great George's Street, not South Great George's Street, and asked whether he knew where it is. With a puzzled expression he told me it was near Wexford Street. I told him it was not and that it was on the other side of the river. He asked me: "What river?" The whole system needs to be examined.