Today is the closing date for applications to the Taxi Hardship Panel. The liberalisation of the taxi industry has resulted not only in financial grief for some, but also in a 300 per cent increase in complaints against taxi drivers.

Taxi drivers, traditionally, have never got much public sympathy. Their opposition, over many years, to the issuing of new taxi plates was widely seen as tantamount to holding commuters to ransom - so much so that when the industry was liberalised and drivers found their plates suddenly devalued the most common public reaction was: "sure, they've only themselves to blame".

Sixteen months on, however, it seems taxi drivers may have had a point.

Liberalisation has not been the public transport panacea it was promised to be. And, worse perhaps, it has created a new class of victim - the self-employed driver, or driver's widow, whose family had depended financially upon an asset which has since been made worthless.

Take Derek Conroy. A 39-year-old father of two from Beaumont, Dublin, he bought a taxi plate for £73,000 in March 1999, raising the money through a loan, against which his house was put as security. It would mean monthly repayments to the bank of £1,400, a sum which included payments for his cab. But he was determined, as he says, "to get a better life for myself and the kids".

He resents people saying he had been naive, given the moves underway at the time to introduce more competition in the market. The Taoiseach's taxi forum had been established, and consultations had begun between local authorities and the taxi unions on the issuing of new plates. But, says Conroy: "There was never any talk of deregulation. I went to all the TDs. I did all my homework. If deregulation had been on the cards I would never have bought into the business."

In November 2000, however, the market was liberalised, and local authorities began issuing plates without limitation. For drivers such as Conroy, it was a devastating blow.

He used to work just over 50 hours a week, leaving him Sundays and Mondays free to spend time with his family. Now he works almost 80 hours a week, rising at 2 a.m. six days a week and putting in a five-hour shift before hitting the streets again in the evening.

"I am just about breaking even on that," he says. "My leisure time with the kids has gone. I am either tired or cranky when I'm off." The last time he went out with his family was three weeks ago when he was given some free tickets to a show. The last time before that, he says, was his birthday last November.

"I don't smoke. I don't really drink. I don't go out." Most difficult of all, he says, is trying to meet the needs of his children.

"You can't just put your hand in your pocket and give them money. You have to say 'hold on for a few weeks and we'll see if we can afford that top', or whatever." He says their telephone line was cut off recently, and so if there was an emergency at home, "they have to use my daughter's mobile and hope there is enough credit on the line".

The strain of meeting repayments on his loan has taken its toll on his family in other ways, or so he believes. His wife had a nervous breakdown last year, and Conroy has little doubt it was brought on from the pressure of their situation.

"She is not the same girl she was when I bought the plate," he says. "Deregulation has had a massive impact on our family life." Making matters worse, Conroy was put off the road for three months after being hit by a drunk driver. He says he lives in fear of another such incident occurring.

"If I was sick, who is going to rent my plate off me? It would all come tumbling down around my ears."

According to Vincent Kearns of the National Taxi Drivers' Union, there are hundreds of cases like Conroy's. Advice clinics, which the union set up for drivers and their families, have encountered cases of marital breakdown, and even suicide, says Kearns. Not surprisingly perhaps, he believes a re-think on liberalisation is needed. The number of licences issued in Dublin has increased from 2,722 to 8,070. "By this time next year, we will have overtaken New York (which has around 12,500 cabs) yet they have a population about 10 times ours."

He points out that Dublin has yet to acknowledge the hidden costs of liberalisation, including an increase in fares, a deterioration in services and, most alarmingly, a rise in assaults and rapes against passengers. Since liberalisation there has been a 300 per cent increase in complaints to the Garda Carriage Office against taxi drivers, he notes. "And when you start to see a total change in the trend and type of complaints you have to ask did we get it wrong."

A recent US report on the issue supports his claims, noting "virtually every major city which has tasted economic deregulation of the taxi industry has lived to regret it, and reversed course." Of 21 US cities which deregulated before 1993, only four had retained an unregulated system by 2001.

The risk of assault appears to have increased for drivers too, as Conroy testifies. "Because of the situation I'm in, I can't afford to turn down a dodgy fare - someone who doesn't seem quite right. You have to take it, and you might get a syringe stuck in your neck if you do."

He says he is not a whingeing taxi driver. "I've put up my house to get a livelihood for myself and I've got slapped in the face but I'm going to keep going. I just want to be put on a level playing field." That, he believes, can only happen if he shakes off his debt.

He has sent his details to the Government's taxi hardship panel. But, he adds, "how long is it going to take before I hear back? It took 11 years for the haemophiliacs to get anything. I can't wait that long."