Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

How will we deal with rural transportation going forward? There is a lack of taxis, in particular. People on a night out are unable to go home. Uber needs to be rolled out in Ireland. Medium and small rural towns have no taxi service at the weekend. People cannot go home so nights out are totally prohibited. Christmas trade will be affected again. The bus service in rural Ireland does not work for what I am talking about. The taxi service issue has been totally abandoned in recent years. People are running from the market and we have no way of dealing with it.

A significant debate needs to happen with the Minister for Transport about his plans for the industry. What does he propose to do with the taxi industry? When will we look at deregulating it and putting Uber into rural Ireland? A person, if Garda vetted, would have the opportunity to make a few pounds by acting as the taxi for the town or village and making sure the centre of population is a safe location to go home from.

People were on to me again in my clinic in Kinsale last weekend about this issue. We had no taxi in Kinsale last weekend. Imagine a town of that size with no taxi. It is because it is not viable and people do not work those hours anymore. Unless we do something drastic quickly, people will not be able to socialise or go out and the isolation issues we have will be intensified. The Minister has been talking about and looking at this huge issue for so long. It needs to be addressed. I propose a debate with the Minister for Transport in this Chamber in the coming weeks about his vision for the taxi service and for Uber. Does he have a long-term plan for towns and villages that effectively have no transportation when it comes to evening time?