Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Cathaoirleach knows, I am spending quite a bit of time in Cork at the moment and last week I had a very good conversation with one of the local taxi drivers there. He was telling me about how tough it is in the industry at the minute, of the huge hours they have to work, issues, unfortunately sometimes, of antisocial behaviour and the fact that it is very hard to get younger drivers to join the industry.

He also told me about an organisation called Taxis for Ireland which, despite the title, does not contain any taxi drivers or representatives of taxi drivers in the organisation. He went on to tell me that our colleague, Senator Lombard, with whom I get on very well here, actually held a meeting for Taxis for Ireland here in the Oireachtas a few months back to talk about how to casualise and de-regularise the industry, to turn it from a full-time job into something one does for a few hours a week to try to scrape a living.

There were people from the tourism industry there, hotels and pubs but the one set of people who were not there and were not invited were the taxi drivers. With all due respect, how can one plan a future for the taxi industry without the taxi drivers? Apparently, that is what Fine Gael's policy appears to be. It is not the first time I have had conversations with taxi drivers across Limerick, Clare and Tipperary who are telling me how hard it is to make a living. They are telling me that they are getting squeezed out of the industry and are very worried about this strong movement now to de-regularise the taxi industry and to exclude them from that conversation.

Taxi drivers have many of the solutions. They know the problems first hand and how to basically build a better future for the industry. These are issues like transferability of licences, the reissue of saloon licences, the cost of wheelchair accessible vehicles and the fact that the grants that are available are not upfront and the costs upfront are so big they cause huge difficulties for the industry.

The fundamental point I want to make is this. These problems can all be solved. It is in all of our interests to ensure a secure future for the taxi industry and for those who work in it. One will not do it by de-regularising the industry and one will not do it by excluding taxi drivers. I am calling for an urgent debate on the future of this industry and am calling for the people in the industry, regardless of where they are, to be properly respected. I know that de-regularisation is the Fine Gael ideology but it is not the way forward here. We can and must do better.