DUBLIN City council will decide next month whether to accept proposals to issue 200 new permanent taxi plates this year and a further 300 Christmas temporary plates.
The council's taxi and hackney sub committee yesterday agreed a set of proposals on which the 52 member council will vote on February 5th.
The measures include lifting Dublin Corporation's moratorium on the issuing of hackney licences but propose raising the cost of such licences from £100 to £750. It is also expected that the new taxi plates will cost up to £25,000 each. It is proposed to issue 100 new plates each year over the next four years, depending on requirements and a review by the corporation.
Mr Christy Burke, a Sinn Fein councillor, said that for many years "the quality of the city's taxi service has been a cause for concern. It is hoped that these proposals will benefit all concerned, from customer to driver".
He called on Dublin Bus to consider providing a 24 hour bus service, initially as a pilot scheme. "The lack of adequate public transport late at night is a major contributing factor in the stretch on taxi resources. Cllr Burke added that the sub committee's proposals were part of a wider movement to improve the quality of transport and that any such improvement had to involve public transport.
One of the requirements for the new taxi licences is that the vehicles must be wheelchair accessible, and the sub committee also wants to put a code of practice in place for taxi drivers. The vice chairwoman of the 10 member subcommittee, Ms Mary Freehill, said that all newly licensed taxi and hackney drivers in Dublin should undergo training to qualify for the Irish Quality Mark.
Ms Freehill, a Labour party councillor, said this would be the best way of securing a "customers' charter" for users of the service. She supported the proposal to introduce an extra 200 permanent taxi licences, 300 temporary ones at Christmas and to lift the moratorium on new hackney licences.