Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber. My question relates to the expiry of taxi licences and the situation that will obtain from January next whereby cars purchased in 2015 will be forced off the road because their ten-year licences will have expired but cars purchased between 2012 and 2014 will continue to operate as taxis. Wheelchair-accessible taxis older than ten years are allowed to continue for 15 years, and vintage models to not have an expiry date.

There is a serious anomaly and inconsistency in the rules regulating the time a small public service vehicle can continue on the road. This is unfair from a cost perspective, particularly when we think of the loss of earnings taxi drivers had to endure as a result of the pandemic. They did not get the full ten years to write off the cost of financing the purchase of their cars. It is also unfair when we look at the cost of buying a new car relative to ten years ago - there is a difference of about €2,000 when it comes to the purchase price and financing arrangements. It is not environmentally consistent, given that there are other messages from the Government with regard to running cars into the ground. The ten-year expiry ignores the reality that taxis have to pass a national car test every six months. That is the measure of whether the car is up to standard or otherwise. Yet, there is also the blunt instrument of ten years as the expiry deadline on a taxi licence. It is hard to understand the rationale behind that other than some sort of blunt way of taking older taxis off the road. At a time when we need more rather than fewer taxis, I am all the more bewildered as to why the Minister for Transport and the NTA have not sought to act in the face of what we expect to be more than 1,000 taxis being put off the road from next January.

Some 1,489 taxis were registered in 2015. The number registered in 2019 was 784. There was a bit of an increase in 2022, but the overall number of taxis operating on our roads is less than was the case prior to the pandemic. In April of this year, 12,990 taxis were in operation on our roads. That is 2,000 fewer than before the pandemic. What is the Minister for Transport doing about this? There were recommendations yesterday from the Dublin task force - it produced an excellent report - calling for more late-night taxis on our streets.Anybody who lives in Dublin is crucially aware of the shortage of taxis, particularly in the early hours of the morning. If we are serious about promoting the night-time economy and all of that, we need to have a strategy in place. There is a particular urgency in asking the Government and Minister for Transport to act because we expect the Government to conclude over the coming weeks. We face the prospect of not having a new Government in January, which would mean well over 1,000 taxis being put off the road. What action plan is being put in place to ensure we see an increase in rather than a fall in the number of taxis, starting in 2025?