Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 11, line 17, to delete "may" and substitute "shall".

These amendments refer to the section of the Bill that describes how licences granted should be displayed and also refers to the section of the Bill which states that the timetables, which shall form part of the contract to which the Minister referred earlier, shall be displayed.

Both amendments seek to change the wording from "shall" to "may". The reason this was rejected in the debate last week was the Minister made the point that where one was to grant a licence for a temporary period, it would be onerous to suggest that such licence needs to be continually on display and the example given was a vehicle provided for the ploughing championships. I do not accept that. The Minister spoke earlier about the need for a review of contracts to ensure the conditions upon which the contracts are granted are being met. The most powerful way in which we can do that is by informing the public of what its expectation should be of a service. Having clearly and publicly on display the arrival time of the service and what the service should be allows the public to understand what it should expect and whether that service is being provided.

On my point on whether a licence should be on public display, I cannot understand why there would be a difficult in mandating that such licence should be on display. I hope this Bill will make progress in allowing a significant number of such licences to be granted and ensuring those licences are provided for legitimate reasons. Why should we not ask the person who wins that licence to have it on display?

There is a simple point to be made here as well. A major complaint made about the taxi industry in the past was that when one got into a vehicle, it was at times difficult and not always as easy as it should be to understand the terms upon which one was getting into the vehicle, who was providing it, etc. It is clear now because a large sticker is on display in each vehicle stating the terms upon which the service is provided and the person who should provide the service so that one may see if that person is providing it, and so on. I argue strongly in the case of this section of the legislation that using the word "shall" creates the wriggle room or the expectation at some point in the future that that licence might be provided.

On the information on timetables, if we are looking for a powerful review and to ensuring these licences and contracts are delivered in the way we want, then we should provide passengers with the information they need to allow them to understand whether the service is on time or whether it is turning up with the frequency with which it should.