Sir, - I have been a taxi-driver in Dublin for the past six years, for the last three of which I have owned my own taxi plate. I have sat silently for most of these six years while my profession has been savaged by all and sundry, most of all by the media.
Deregulate, deregulate, and then deregulate again just to make sure. Such is the cry from all quarters, including your own Editorial comments. Never mind that deregulation has not solved the "taxi problem" in most of the major cities in which it has been applied. Most recently, in Edinburgh, the city fathers decided that their deregulation of the taxi industry had been such a disastrous experiment that they had to regulate once more, and pay huge compensation to drivers to whom new licences had been issued.
Sean Barrett (Opinion, December 2nd) held up Derry and Belfast as two shining examples of the merits of deregulation. Never mind that the drivers of taxis in those two cities earn a mere pittance, and that the majority of the licences are held - if not in name, in reality - by faceless organisations which have caused great harm on our island over the last three decades.
To deregulate the industry means just that: to open it up to all and sundry, to anyone with the price of a second-hand car and the insurance. There is plenty of dirty money in Dublin city, the owners of which are rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of being able to wash it clean by buying up cheap (or even free) taxi licences after our own "deregulation day". Already rumours abound within the industry of licences being owned by somewhat unsavoury characters, and this with licences costing in excess of £70,000. Such financial constrictions will not apply after "deregulation day".
Indeed, they do not apply now in the "hackney" trade, where a licence to operate can be bought for the princely sum of £1,000. So is this what is meant by letting the market find its own level. Let all the "cowboys" muscle in and control the trade, with the day of the honest independent operator gone forever, bullied and intimidated out of the trade or forced to work for pittance wages?
We are told that deregulation will mean more competition and lower fares. In other cities the experience is somewhat different. As individual drivers find it increasingly difficult to earn a decent living, the temptation is to "rip off" whatever price they can from the customer, often the unsuspecting tourist. This is aggravated by decent drivers leaving the trade, to be replaced by dubious characters.
It is with the public transport system that the real problem in Dublin lies, especially the lack of an adequate late-night service. Just when most people are demanding their services, these two concerns shut up shop for the day and leave it to the taxis to get all their customers home safely. This is an impossible task, as is shown by the huge queues at taxi ranks throughout the city at any time after 11.30 p.m.
Mary Harney and her PD colleagues, who wield disproportionate influence to their electoral mandate, would be better served by looking hard at these factors in the transport equation, rather than wielding the big stick of deregulation at taxi-drivers who do their level best in difficult and trying conditions. - Yours, etc.,
Ken Johnstone, Cromwellsfort Road, Walkinstown, Dublin 12.