Dublin City Council's approval of 200 new taxi plates last night came almost a year after councillors approved the issue of a similar number.
There were almost 1,000 applicants for the last batch, many of them existing drivers. But early threats of a legal challenge combined with normal administrative delays and, finally, the wait for 1998 registration plates meant only 30 to 40 of these were on the streets for Christmas.
The rest are expected to be in action this month and next, even as a further 200 plates becomes an issue. The relative calm with which taxi drivers greeted the latest developments in City Hall reflects a belief that the Taoiseach's initiative of a broad-based Dublin Taxi Forum, due to sit for the first time this week, could override the council's power to issue new plates.
The proposals for extra taxis and increased fares came on foot of an interim report from British consultants hired to examine the issue. Their final report is expected in March but two other, unofficial, studies published before Christmas have favoured complete deregulation.
A paper by Trinity College economists argued that deregulation would double taxi numbers in the city and calculated that users were now paying at least £12 million a year more than they would in a free market. The Trinity study was followed by a report from the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, which called for deregulation over three years with a single car-for-hire licence replacing the separate taxi and hackney permits.
However, the chamber's report recommended giving preference to existing plate-holders in the issue of new licences and also called for preferential treatment for service providers in terms of tax and insurance.
To both these reports, the taxi drivers' response was the same. Deregulation would turn the trade into a part-time job for all - a travesty especially for drivers who had invested up to £80,000 in buying plates. And besides, deregulation had been tried and abandoned in a number of cities.
The cost of plates is certainly a key issue for those who have already bought them. Demand for plates has seen the going rate rise, fed in turn by the growth of "cosying", a trade within the trade. At least 80 per cent of all taxis are sublet part-time to a second driver - the "cosy".
Legitimate business people, like the bookmaker Terry Rogers, have identified the taxi-plate as a sound investment. But gardai believe at least one Dublin criminal gang has bought plates.
There are also problems with the taxi market which have nothing to do with drivers. A combination of Irish drinking habits and restrictive pub licensing laws sees a huge bulge in the demand for taxis at about midnight - the same time that public transport ceases to operate. The taxi lobby protests bitterly that the State's own service providers never undergo the same scrutiny as they do.