Irish Taxi

TV3 Report on Racism within the Irish Taxi Industry

Roy — Thu, 24 May 2012 04:28:23 +0000

TV3 Studio discussion about Racism in Irish Taxis with Dave Mc Guinness from TTnH and Helen Lowrey from Migrant Rights

O’Connell Street (Gresham) Taxi Rank drivers discuss Racism

TV 3 report into racism in the Irish Taxi Industry with Christy Humphrey, Parnell street taxi rank and hidden cameras in Taxis

Fair Point Well made

Roy — Tue, 22 May 2012 13:39:30 +0000

The United Irishmen on the Gresh:

Where it all went wrong?

Roy — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:10:22 +0000

There’s a thread over on the Forum discussing some of John M’s ideas for fixing the Taxi business, the tenet of John’s argument is that it should be more expensive to operate a taxi, thereby forcing out of the budiness those who are not serious about it. This got me to thinking about what exactly it was that went wrong with the deregulation of the taxi business here in Ireland.
When taxi deregulation was announced they decided on a very low price for a Taxi plate in order to satisfy the public outcry for more Taxis on the streets, initially, the volume of sales were enough to sustain the palatial offices housing the regulatory staff and eventually when these sales dried up, the renewal fees were raised to meet the their requirements.
The judge, at the time of deregulation did say that the price of a plate should only be enough to cover the administration costs, so all of the relatively low charges were justified on these grounds.
However, I have recently seen a presentation made by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, about their enforcement team and how it operates, it made me realise how badly thought out taxi enforcement was/is here and how this failure has resulted in the absolute chaos now prevalent on Irish streets.
Let’s first compare New York with Ireland, firstly there are far less taxis in New York and also the area is far more compact, a lot less diverse and spread out than Ireland, thereby making it easier to enforce the rules there.
Ireland has 12 enforcement officers for the entire country, the NTA argue that the police force form part of the enforcement team and should be included in any count, maybe they do but no more so than in any other country in the world, they simply ticket taxis in the same way they do general traffic paying little or no heed to Taxi issues, also they constantly complain that they are under resourced for dealing with regular crime.
New York on the other hand, has 100 enforcement officers which are split into 5 squads and a total staff of 165 in the enforcement section
They also have an inspection station, 65 vehicles, including 3 tow trucks along with a vehicle pound. The enforcers in New York issued 5000 summonses last year, in Ireland even though flagrant abuse of the taxi regulations can be witnessed daily, summonses issued are numbered in Tens.

How much should they charge/have charged here in Ireland for plates and renewals if they were to sustain anything like the level of enforcement achieved in New York?

Note: NYC have plans in place to increase the number of enforcement officers to 200, squads to 10 and total staff to 365

How much better would the taxi business be here in Ireland if they’d planned the level of enforcement required and priced pates and renewals accordingly?

Is that what is wrong with the taxi business in Ireland?
Should that be the number one issue to put right?
Saying the Gardai will look after it is old, and merely fudging the issue, they can barely cope with their current workload.

After reading the above article it seems to suggest that monies collected from the taxi industry is in some way put back into the industry, this certainly is not the case, that is how it should be … Not the reality.

One old face set to go?

Roy — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:09:00 +0000

Appointed on the 13th June 2007 (I wonder was it a Friday?) to a term of not less than 3 years and no more than 5 years, having either not being offered, or deciding not to avail of, a second term, Kathleen Doyle is strongly rumored to be leaving her office for good today.
Despite her overseeing all but the destruction of the taxi business in Ireland, leaving it a completely unsustainable business with earnings barely enough to cover costs, I would like to wish her a long and happy retirement.
Hopefully whoever replaces her isn’t as blind to reality as she was.

Same old faces, same old crap.

Roy — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:49 +0000

Why is it that the Minister gets to decide who represents taxi drivers on the Advisory committees and sub committees? Thereby allowing him to select his puppets that are there simply to do his bidding, along with MPOs and other dinosaurs that should be condemned to the past.
Surely these politicians and civil servants can organise the one thing they seem capable of doing right ….. An election, allowing taxi drivers decide who they wish to represent them from a list of suitable candidates capable and willing to do the job.

Update on the Green Light Debacle

Roy — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:23:05 +0000

Leo Varadkar has (as government here always tends to do ) bowed to media pressure and announced that the Green Lights on Taxi roofsigns are illegal and inherently racist, he also has a problem with the “Guaranteed Irish” and “Truly Irish” stickers on windows, along with Tricolours, in fact anything that denotes a drivers Irishness is bad, no mention was made of other Nationalities emblems that can be seen on Taxis throughout the city, There’s only a problem with being proud of your “Irishness”

I’m surprised I’m allowed call this site Irish Taxi ……………. shit, I’ll be sorry I wrote that!

Irishtaxi.org now making the news!

Roy — Tue, 15 May 2012 01:57:07 +0000

Forum threads and comments were used widely in an article yesterday in the Journal to justify the journalists argument that the green lights seen on some Taxis around the city are there to designate that the driver is Irish.
The article was later discussed on a popular radio “call in” show on 98fm.
Personally I don’t see how this could be the case as the lights are available to whomever wishes to purchase them and from what I can gather the lights are mainly to show that the driver is available for hire.

You can read the Journal article here

The threads mentioned in the article are here and here
At least she said this site was “popular”

Should Taxi Drivers Receive Welfare Benefits?

Roy — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:05:04 +0000

Many Taxi drivers claim welfare allowances and grants …..

Taxi driving is the perfect method for cheating welfare out of dole payments and any other form of subsistence, provided you are willing to cheat on your tax return, if you’re willing to cheat on one … it seems obvious you’d be willing to cheat on the other …………
Only way around it is to disallow taxi drivers from claiming welfare or benefits, if you’re not capable of making a living from it …give it up!
Isn’t that how small businesses are supposed to operate?

Reply from Colm Rapple to a reader in the Mail on Sunday, regarding working while claiming dole payments:

You are allowed to do some ‘subsidiary work’, as it is called, and still get Jobseek-er’s Benefit. The proviso is that the subsidiary work could have been done while you were in full-time employment and outside your normal working hours. You clearly meet that condition.
In assessing whether that condition is met, the Department may ask for evidence that you were able to do the part-time job for at least six months without it affecting your ability to perform your full-time job. But that’s more a guideline
than -an absolute require¬ment. Those in receipt of Jobseeker’s Benefit who never had second jobs can retain their entitlement while doing some subsidiary work provided they can show it’s work that they could have done in their spare time while they were employed.
There is an earnings limit of €12.70 a day’ from such subsidiary employment for those who have less than 117 paid PRSI contributions in the three years before claim–. ing Jobseeker’s Benefit. No limit applies to those who have paid more than 117 contributions during the previous three years

For some reason Taxi Driving, (which is a full time job for whoever wants to operate a Taxi) is somehow regarded as “subsidiary work” as outlined above for those too lazy to put in the shifts required or incapable of making it pay or willing to lie on Government forms.
I’ve no problem if they want to do another Job to subsidise their income but they should not be subsidised by Government to compete against other drivers.

Cab App (Yeah …. another one)

Roy — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:43:15 +0000

Yet another successful London Taxi application hoping to make it big in Dublin and provide work for drivers along with ease of use for passengers, very similar to the Hailo App reviewed previously …. with one great exception …… it’s cheaper for drivers, no charge for credit card transactions and lower charges for jobs off the system.

“Great” I hear you say (if you’re a driver) but therein lies the [problem … which one will customers choose? After all, they’ll decide which one is a success, personally I think charging the customer for credit card charges might prove fatal for Cab App, but we’ll see.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try it out so I cannot compare features with hailo but most drivers will decide based on the work they get from the App and not for the bells and whistles attached to it.

I’ve signed up .may the best App win!

Info on Cab App: http://irishtaxi.org/forum/index.php/topic,19105.0.html

Registration page: https://www.cabapp.net/account/register (choose Dublin from the dropdown menu)

Busy Doing Nothing/As time goes by

Roy — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:30:14 +0000

Mustn’t it be very nice to be a cosy civil servant with your secure job and pension, great allowances and perks and nice wage packet that was benchmarked with someone in the private sector that actually works for a living,

We’re depending on this lazy shower to bring about changes we hope might make a mediocre mend in the disaster they created within the Taxi business, five long months ago minister Kelly announced 46 actions he claims will revolutionise the industry, taking six months longer than he promised to come up with them.

Meanwhile the Taxi business is still 3 times over supplied, still a hive of illegal activity, still peopled by stressed individuals many bordering on depression some already deep in that particular dark hole.

Get your fingers out and do something!