Good morning all. Apologies have been received from Senator Imelda Goldsboro.

The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss issues facing the taxi industry. We do so with the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation, Tiománaí Tacsaí na hÉireann, the Tralee Taxi Association, the Taxis for Ireland Coalition, the National Private Hire and Taxi Association and the Taxi Alliance of Ireland. On behalf of the committee, I am pleased to welcome from the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation, Mr. Alan Cooley, president; from Tiománaí Tacsaí na hÉireann, Mr. David McGuinness, chair, and Mr. Alan Brennan, secretary; from the Tralee Taxi Association, Mr. Terry Boyle, chair, and Mr. Patrick Hurley; from the Taxis for Ireland Coalition, Mr. Pat Crotty, CEO of the Vintners' Federation of Ireland, and Mr. Adrian Cummins, CEO of the Restaurant Association of Ireland; from the National Private Hire and Taxi Association, Mr. Jim Waldron, spokesperson; and from the Taxi Alliance of Ireland, Mr. Angus McDonnell, public relations officer.

Before we begin, I will read a note on privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against any person or entity outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask members partaking via MS Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

Witnesses normally have five minutes for opening statements, but because we have six representative groups, we have restricted it to three minutes. I ask witnesses to do their best to adhere to that three-minute schedule. I invite Mr. Cooley to make his opening statement on behalf of the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation.

I thank the Chair for the opportunity to make this submission on behalf of the Irish Taxi Drivers' Federation. We urgently need the taxi regulations to be updated and the fast-moving app companies stopped from destroying the taxi industry in Ireland. We know from other countries that the business model of Uber and other app companies is to dismantle the taxi industry in each and every country they gain entry into, pay lobbyists to engage with government, which they have done in our own country, and try to bring in their own business model, which is fixed fares, turning family cars that sit in driveways into taxis when needed, thus turning the very successful regulated taxi industry in Ireland into a part-time industry that is not controlled by the National Transport Authority, NTA, but by an app-based company that is run from California and other European countries.

We acknowledge the important work that is undertaken and the service that is provided by taxi drivers in our communities. Taxis play an important role in providing access to essential services, including healthcare. As we are individual stakeholders in the taxi industry, we cannot go up against multinational app companies without the protection of the NTA. These tech companies, which control the booking platforms in Ireland, can change their terms and conditions whenever their boardrooms wants higher profits. The Taxi Regulation Act 2013 has no legislation to protect the taxi industry because in 2013 the tech companies did not exist in Ireland.

The public commentary surrounding the difficulty that drivers find themselves having to deal with is not helped by the slanderous assertions of many that taxi drivers are robbers and taxi fares are a rip-off, the claim that a bit of competition will do us good, or the assertion that it is time to take the cartel down. These are all very hurtful comments and untrue. Of course these predatory dispatch platforms and their shareholders are only fully aware of how to divide and conquer. Globally, these predators have ruined the lives of countless taxi drivers and suicide and financial ruin go hand in hand in their playbook.

I thank the committee for its time. Members should feel free to ask me any questions.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak here today. After a disturbing "Prime Time" special aired on 12 May 2012, the then transport Minister, Leo Varadkar, requested a complete overhaul of taxi licensing and regulations in conjunction with the National Transport Authority and headed up by then Minister of State, Deputy Alan Kelly.

The key goals and achievements of this review were to restore customer confidence through transparency and safety, fair competition and stopping illicit operators undercutting honest drivers, modernisation, an NTA taxi app for driver verification, and a regulatory framework that included a new Taxi Regulation Act to replace outdated system and to be led by the NTA. In essence, the Minister of State’s review was a comprehensive overhaul aiming to professionalise and regulate the sector, making it safer and more reliable for consumers while aiming to reward good operators through rigorous new standards and enforcement.

However, as in most industries since then, technology has moved on and changed the way we work or order services. These changes have had a huge impact on our industry and the way we operate. Gone are the local taxi companies and in general we are now left with several technology multinationals who control a very high percentage of taxi bookings through app technology and algorithms, passing this cost to drivers. Most taxi drivers embraced the new technology and continue to provide a top-class service as legislated for by the Taxi Regulation Act 2013 and the 2016 regulations.

Now that these technology companies have gained a monopoly in the industry, though, they are pushing the legal boundaries of the legislation to control the fares and, therefore, push down drivers’ incomes and increase fares for passengers through priority bookings and technology fees, which the driver does not receive. We would ask that the members of the transport committee recommend to the Minister to update the legislation to outlaw these practices and protect driver incomes and customers alike.

It is our opinion based on the evidence from other jurisdictions, this is only the beginning of the moves by these companies to force a totally unregulated taxi market into Ireland. Currently, the NTA conducts a review of taxi fares carried out by an independent third party, followed by a public consultation, every two years. This review uses a taxi cost index to assess changes in taxi operating costs and market conditions. In addition to the taxi cost index, the NTA considers wider economic and market factors such as inflation, fuel and energy supply prices and market conditions. On the outcome of the review, the new fare is implemented, giving the provider of the service the ability to sustain a reasonable income and the customer value for money. The interference by both Freenow-Lyft and Uber with the metered fare has reduced the sustainable income provided to the driver by the regulated fare structure, leading to long-term withdrawal and a decline of operators from the taxi sector. The withdrawal of taxi drivers and a decline in availability for customers will lead to these companies offering to provide an unregulated, unsafe model offering dynamic surge pricing depending on need to users.

Over the last ten years, successive Governments have invested approximately €80 million in the taxi industry through wheelchair-accessible grants, electric wheelchair grants, electric vehicle grants and local area hackney grants. Equivalent investment has been made by taxi drivers to provide an accessible and sustainable new taxi fleet. The Government must protect this investment by the Irish taxpayer by legislating to protect the metered taxi fare. The Government and legislators now face a choice of whether to allow the tech companies to destroy the regulated taxi sector and livelihoods of the 20,000 operators-----

I ask Mr. McGuinness to bring his contribution to a conclusion. He has gone two minutes over time.

The operator will barely make minimum wage. Once again, we ask the committee to recommend to the Minister for Transport and the National Transport Authority to ensure that the standards set in the fare review are upheld to allow a professional taxi service for the public and for taxi drivers.

I thank Mr. McGuinness and apologise for speeding him up. I now invite Mr. Boyle to make his opening statement on behalf of the Tralee Taxi Association.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to it today. My purpose this morning is not to restate every detail of our written submission but to outline its core findings and concerns, particularly as they affect rural Ireland, public safety and the sustainability of the taxi industry.

Ireland’s taxi service is public interest transport infrastructure. In rural areas especially, taxis are not discretionary. They provide access to work, healthcare, education and safe travel at times when no other transport exists. That reality must remain central to policy decisions. Since deregulation in 2001, the national licensing and maximum fare framework overseen by the National Transport Authority has broadly worked. However, subsequent regulatory changes, notably the ten-year vehicle age limit and the ban on licence transfers, have created serious unintended consequences. The ten-year rule is especially damaging in rural areas, where replacement costs are high and vehicles remain roadworthy longer. Likewise, the ban on licence transfers has driven the industry into unregulated long-term leasing arrangements, creating legal, financial and tax risks that are entirely avoidable through a controlled transfer system.

Rural taxi services operate on structure not algorithms: phone bookings, regular customers and local rosters that guarantee early morning, late night and emergency cover. That structure is now being undermined. Multinational app platforms allow drivers to work only when it suits them, with no obligation to provide cover. The result is reduced rural availability, loss of unsocial hours services and drivers leaving rural counties to work in cities. It is telling that platforms such as Uber and Bolt have themselves warned of shortages during peak periods, an admission that this model is not fit for rural Ireland.

A central concern in our submission is fixed and algorithmic pricing. Fixed-fare models break the link between the regulated taxi meter and real journey conditions. Drivers carry all the risk of delays and congestion while platforms control the fare and take commission. For a full-time driver earning around €26,000 in take-home pay, this represents a significant and unsustainable income reduction.

We also raise serious concerns around GDPR and data use. Driver and passenger data is increasingly reused for algorithmic pricing, ranking and access to work, with little transparency. This creates an unfair system where platforms understand pricing and allocation logic, but drivers and consumers do not.

Accessibility is another critical issue. Wheelchair-accessible vehicles, WAV, are essential public service assets, yet they are more expensive to operate and disadvantaged by algorithm-driven dispatch systems. The current wheelchair-accessible vehicle grant scheme is over-subscribed and does not meet demand.

On workforce supply, we strongly support robust Garda vetting to protect public safety. However, the current public service vehicle, PSV, licensing and vetting process is slow and fragmented. Streamlining this process - without weakening standards - is essential to bringing new drivers into the industry.

Finally, many rural drivers support the development of a national taxi booking app operated by the NTA, building on the existing TFI pilot. This would restore public oversight, ensure fare transparency, protect data, support accessibility, and integrate taxis properly with the wider public transport system.

In summary, our submission asks the committee to consider targeted, practical reforms: reviewing fixed-fare models, reforming licence governance, supporting rural services, strengthening accessibility, ensuring data transparency, streamlining vetting and exploring an NTA-run booking platform. Ireland’s taxi industry can remain sustainable, accessible and safe but only if regulation keeps pace with technology.

I thank members and welcome their questions.

I thank Mr. Boyle. I now invite Mr. Crotty to give his opening statement on behalf of the Taxis for Ireland Coalition.

I thank the members of the committee for the opportunity to speak to them today. I am the chief executive of the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, VFI, which represents publicans across Ireland outside of Dublin. The coalition was formed in late 2023 and brings together organisations that depend on a functioning taxi system: the VFI, the Restaurants Association of Ireland, the Licensed Vintners Association, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, Vision Ireland as well as Uber and Bolt.

We are a broad-based coalition because the problem we are addressing cuts across sectors, regions and communities.

The starting point for today’s discussion must be the data because the scale of the problem is clear from the data. Since 2019, Ireland’s population has grown by 8.5%. Over that same period, the total number of small public service vehicles, SPSVs, has grown by just 1% nationally. Out of 26 counties, 23 have seen a decline in taxi numbers since 2019. More than 10% of the regional SPSV fleet has disappeared. In the Border region, it is down nearly 20% and in Leinster, outside Dublin, it has declined by just short of 15%. This decline is part of a long-term trend. The number of SPSV driver licences fell from 47,529 in May 2009 to 34,678 in 2012 and stood at 27,887 in 2025. That is a decline of 20% since 2012 and over 40% since 2009.

This has significant consequences for rural Ireland. In many towns and villages taxis are no longer available at night. This affects the footfall and viability of businesses that operate in the night-time economy and has an impact on community life. Customers leave earlier or do not come out at all because they do not have a way to get home safely. Surveys cited by the coalition show seven in ten people find it difficult to get home from pubs and restaurants in their area and nearly four in ten people are concerned about getting home safely due to taxi shortages. This is also a public safety issue. Publicans have spent decades promoting responsible drinking and supporting drink-driving enforcement. However, when taxis are unavailable people are left without a safe alternative.

A functioning taxi system is a critical part of Ireland’s road safety framework, particularly outside cities where public transport options are limited or non-existent. The coalition does not believe this is a failure of demand, as demand exists. We have a problem of supply, which is a problem driven by the absence of a national strategy, rising barriers to entry and no targets for supply or regional coverage. That is why we are calling for a national taxi strategy with clear, evidence-based targets for driver and vehicle numbers, a focus on rural availability and peak-time accessibility and policies that lower unnecessary barriers for new entrants.

I thank Mr. Crotty and ask Mr. Waldron to make his opening statement.

Our members provide a safe, professional, door-to-door transport service across the country. The sector consists of approximately 27,000 licensed drivers operating 20,000 licensed vehicles, 25% of which are wheelchair accessible. Our service plays a vital role in plugging gaps when other forms of transport let us down. Over many years, our members have actively embraced professionalism and innovation. All vehicles accept both cash and credit card payments. Drivers welcomed the introduction of app-based booking technology, albeit with caution. However, drivers felt reassured by Ireland’s strong regulatory framework and the oversight role of the National Transport Authority.

Drivers who used apps found they could work more efficiently and the commission paid to these companies was generally offset by improved access to work. That balance changed in November, when Uber introduced a fixed fares policy and, more recently, Freenow upped its commission to 25%. This marked a fundamental shift in control. App companies are no longer acting merely as booking platforms; they are now effectively setting fares, controlling work allocation and influencing driver income. This undermines the regulated taxi meter, which is a system established by the NTA following extensive public consultation and designed to balance affordability for passengers with a financially sustainable career for drivers. The taxi meter is not outdated; it is fair, transparent and trusted. Removing or bypassing it risks destabilising a system that works in the public interest. App companies operate on commission-based models that lack transparency and allow fees to be increased unilaterally. Drivers bear all operating costs and risks, while algorithms increasingly reward longer hours and penalise job refusal. This creates downward pressure on earnings and threatens the long-term viability of the profession. Crucially, this is not just a driver issue but a passenger issue. App companies have no obligation to ensure rural coverage. Their algorithms prioritise profit, not public need.

Ireland’s SPSV model is respected internationally precisely because it is regulated, inclusive, safe and reliable. Allowing app companies to override that framework risks replacing a public interest system with a profit-driven one. This raises a fundamental question for the Minister. Will app companies continue to be allowed to position themselves between licensed drivers and the National Transport Authority and act as unregulated brokers while charging significant fees to both passengers and drivers?

We seek clear assurances from this committee that driver livelihoods will be protected and the NTA will retain full authority over fares, standards and market oversight. We ask that the NTA be explicitly empowered to regulate app-based platforms, including preventing the use of algorithms that maximise profits at the expense of drivers and service quality. If such control cannot be effectively exercised, we propose that the NTA develop a publicly regulated booking platform. This would allow passengers to view and request nearby licensed taxis directly, ensure fair and regulated fares, protect accessibility and provide the NTA with accurate, independent data rather than relying on commercially biased information. The choice before the committee is simple. It is between a regulated public interest taxi service or a market controlled by profit-driven algorithms.

I thank Mr. Waldron. Last of all, I ask Mr. McDonnell to make his opening statement.

Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. The national maximum taxi fare is the statutory mechanism for calculating the fare structure to which all taxi drivers must adhere. The ethos of the fare review is twofold, namely, to offer reasonable cost to the passenger and to ensure a fair return to the driver for his or her labour.

Today, we are experiencing a perfect storm within the industry. Taxi drivers in Ireland have fully embraced technology and have become extremely reliant on electronic and app-based dispatch platforms to earn their living. Within the Taxi Regulation Act, there is a solitary page outlining the licensing requirements for dispatch operators. That is Statutory Instrument 472 of 2009. These requirements consist of no more than a few administrative compliances and, hey presto, these companies are free to make out like bandits at the expense of the taxi driver at present and, going forward, the passenger. We believe the award of a dispatch licence should be a privilege and not a right. In 2009, when SI 472 was enacted, taxi despatch operators were mainly using two-way radio and in-car data systems to dispatch bookings. Now, booking apps are the norm. The taxi cost index, which establishes the costs experienced by the average taxi driver, makes note of, and allows for, the cost of dispatch company affiliation, rental cost and currently the average percentage charge experienced by drivers affiliated to app-based dispatch operators. Figures from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, estimate these costs within the taxi cost index at €2,997 per driver per annum. It, therefore, follows that any additional costs incurred by drivers must be taken into account in the next biennial fare review. As such, increased costs for drivers will result in increased fares for passengers, as per the statutory obligations of the taxi cost index to establish the fare structure based on, and reflective of, all costs borne by the taxi driver.

We appeal to the committee, the Minister and his Department and the NTA to immediately make legislative changes to the Taxi Regulation Act to outlaw third party interference with the national maximum taxi fare in an effort to circumvent it and the powers of the NTA. Drivers’ fares are capped by legalisation, so why are dispatch operator’s fees not capped? The narrative we have heard, that we should just delete the app, does not fly as drivers have little or no option but to affiliate to one or all of the apps, such is the monumental struggle to earn a living from the taxi business currently. The injustices being experienced by taxi drivers at the hands of these predatory dispatch operators must be stopped before the Irish taxi Industry is decimated in this race to the bottom. Members should make no mistake - the consumer will ultimately pay the price soon after the professional taxi driver is no more.

I thank Mr. McDonnell. That concludes our opening statements from witnesses.

Today's hearing follows on from a series of hearings that were held in the audiovisual room in early December, which I attended. At that hearing, I gave a commitment that we would have a hearing in a timely manner. Hence we are here today on 21 January. I want to acknowledge that I could not accommodate all witness requests today, in particular, one witness request. The committee is working to facilitate that witness, perhaps next week.

I acknowledge the trusted service provided by taxi drivers across the country in terms of the assistance provided to people, particularly vulnerable people, elderly people and people with a disability, in terms of helping them to stay connected within their communities, more often than not helping them to get to work, to a shop or to church. It is really important. The reality unfortunately is that the number of vehicles active in Ireland is in serious decline. I know Mr. Crotty referred to that. Based on data made available to me, when I started out in public life in 2009, there were 47,529 driver licences. There was significant decline into 2012 and the latest figure available to me is something around 27,000. Between 2012 and 2025 that is a 20% decrease in licensed drivers in 20 years. Even in my own native Tipperary, there is serious decline. I see it first hand in my hometown of Clonmel. I acknowledge the message received in the opening statements. What I have heard to date is the strength and consistency of those concerns raised by all the associations. Those concerns centre around fare integrity, driver income, sustainability and the growing power of multinational booking platforms. I acknowledge representatives of the hospitality sector as well. Not that we needed it, but they provided compelling evidence of a serious shortage of taxis, particularly outside Dublin during evenings and weekends, with knock-on effects for rural social life, tourism, employment and community viability.

Our task as a committee is to understand where enforcement, regulation, and data policy design are falling short and what practical, precision-type reforms are required. With that in mind, I will begin with questions to our witnesses. We have a rota. The clock is not working. We have an hour and 15 minutes. We will have only one opportunity for each member and I am anxious to facilitate Deputy Boyd Barrett, who has been in attendance for the entire meeting. We will have approximately seven minutes per member. Because we have so many witnesses, I would ask if each member could direct their questions to a specific witness. First is Deputy Michael Collins, followed by Deputy Emer Currie.

I appreciate the Cathaoirleach facilitating the other group that wanted to be here; we can hopefully do that very soon. It is hard to direct a question at any one of our guests. They are all welcome in here because they are all fighting the same cause, which is protection of the people. Mr. Cooley was the first person to ask the question. Could he tell me how regulated is Uber in comparison to taxi operators?

Uber is basically just a booking platform; it is are not actually a taxi driver. It is a dispatch operation. It uses the taxi drivers in the country. Freenow, Uber, Taxis 2000, Lynk: they are all really the same; they have basically just a booking platform.

Have they any regulation?

No.

Do drivers go through the same rigorous driving licence application and so on?

No. The driver would invest in a car, the licence, the SGS, installing his meter, getting his meter calibrated, insurance, and tax. It is a very minimal investment from a booking agent to get a world-class service. The members have seen the investment coming in from the Government. Mr. McGuinness just made reference to €80 million in the last couple of years. The investment is ongoing from the drivers and the NTA. It is a very minimal investment from the booking agent: basically just setting up a platform and advertising it, and then people booking a taxi on it. That is really all their investment is. They have no investment in any vehicle in the country.

What I cannot understand is that the taxis are regulated with an inch of their life. From the very moment they have to go and get their licence they have some of the most ridiculous questions put to them. In rural areas they may be asked about stuff up the country that has no relevance. How in the name of God have we left ourselves in a situation where Uber can just walk in unregulated and run a service?

I can answer that to the best of my ability. In 2013 there were no tech companies in the country, when the then Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly re-regulated the market. That is probably addressing why at the time there were about 45,000 licences in the country. Going back to 2009, the renewal fee for a licence was €3. A lot of people had a taxi PSV licence sitting in the wardrobe and never used it. After deregulation in November 2000, there was a 500% increase in taxi licences over the following eight years, which led to an oversupply. Double-jobbing was prevalent. There was vulnerability to oversupply, particularly in the urban centres. Throughout the 2000s there was saturation. When the then Minister, Deputy Kelly came in, he put up the renewal to €250, which got rid of a lot of PSV holders to whom it was not worth it to keep it. They brought in the nine-year rule in testing. They brought in tax clearance certificates, which was a major reason people did not renew their PSV licences at the time, especially in rural Ireland, which seems to be the big problem here at the moment. I just want to try give the committee an insight into what has happened. We were going through the biggest crisis the country ever witnessed from 2007 up to 2013. Then the country started to get back on its feet. At that stage the whole taxi industry was overhauled. As I said, with the higher standards of vehicles the SGS was brought in, which cost money. We also had branding, we had the driver link. There was a lot more work that had to be done to become a taxi driver and to hold the PSV licence. To answer the question, first of all, the work was not there from 2008 to 2011. That is why we had a decline in licence numbers. We had the biggest crisis that the country ever witnessed.

Getting back to the charges, the first thing they charged was a technology charge, which is totally illegal. If the Deputy got into my car at a taxi rank and I put €1 extra onto my meter, I would be pulled up by the regulators straight away for overcharging. There is no legislation at the moment to protect the drivers and the passengers in this country from price gouging from the tech companies. The Trojan horse at the moment is the fixed fare. A fixed fare comes in, cheaper fares, the passenger is happy. Directly down the line, Uber and Freenow are directly challenging the authority of the NTA. They basically want to be sitting in five years' time doing their own regulation and legislation.

Is there any kind of Uber vehicle regulation?

No, there is only a dispatch licence.

It is extraordinary to be honest.

That is why we are in here today.

There is rule and regulation going right through for the taxis.

In Europe we are the most highly regulated taxi industry. We are the last. The eyes of the taxi industry in Europe are watching this. We have seen that in every other country Uber has entered, it has systematically destroyed the taxi industry with heavy lobbying. They have a bank book that is worth billions on their side.

I have one more question for Mr. Boyle. He referred to supporting rural services. I know the vintners are here today. A lot of pubs, restaurants and hotels around the countryside are finding it difficult to get taxi services.

How does Mr. Boyle think that can be turned around?

With rural Ireland, as the Deputy will understand, the notion that one size fits all does not really apply. What has happened, particularly since the app companies have taken control, is that there is a movement of drivers from the rural areas into the larger urban areas. They come in at peak times, maybe at closing time or if there are events on and so on. What is happening in rural Ireland, as the Deputy will also be aware of, is that we have had a significant loss of pubs. There has been a huge reduction in the number of pubs. We have an added issue in some of the rural towns where hotels that would have operated for tourism are no longer in the system for tourism, which has reduced the demand. What has also happened is that traditionally in rural Ireland taxi companies would have operated on a structured system where you have a number of vehicles that would be rostered to cover early morning and late night. It would be run locally where you would be aware of what is happening and what is coming up and where the likely surges would be. The app companies have removed that completely. A driver can switch on his app whenever it suits and come and go. The actual structure is disappearing from the industry in rural Ireland.

The witnesses are very welcome here. Many families in my constituency of Dublin West have been reared on the livelihood of a taxi driver and we want to keep it that way. I thank them for getting me home late at night for many a year. I certainly see from the witnesses' perspective the disruption to the taxi metre process caused by the challenge posed by fixed fares. It feels like a promotion that was introduced over the witnesses' heads. They have no control over it and it is a permanent promotion that is being offered in relation to the perception of cheaper fares and fixed fares.

Talking to people over the past number of weeks in anticipation of this meeting, the Uber proposition is attractive because of the security of that fixed fare. I did not have the Uber app until a couple of days ago. I checked it out and looked at the price of going to the airport. The witnesses say it is a false economy for consumers. Can they touch on that? They are saying the perception people have through this promotion, which seems to be a permanent promotion around fixed and cheaper fares, is not accurate.

It is accurate at the beginning of the journey. What Uber does is it destroys the regulated industry and then introduces surge pricing. Surge pricing depends on the demand at certain times of the day, where the journey is going and how many customers are looking for a taxi at that time. The only fixed price is that the driver is getting a fixed price to carry you from A to B but what we have already seen happen is that the fixed fee the driver gets is not what Uber takes from you. We have seen a number of instances where the driver received the fixed price - say €25 - but the passenger is actually charged €33, €34 or €37. The fixed price is only for the driver. It is not what you are going to pay because you will pay a priority booking fee and a technology fee that are added onto your fixed price. Uber is only guaranteeing the driver the fixed price; it is not guaranteeing you a fixed price because it adds on charges.

While initially this is great but as soon as the regulated taxi industry is destroyed, then the customers are at Uber's beck and call and there is no governing body like the NTA or the maximum fare structure to cover the price of the taxi.

How will the witnesses get the public on board with this?

It is like anything, if I offered the public free taxi rides, they would say it is the best thing in the world but taxi drivers have to sustain a living. The national taxi fare takes that into account. Every two years when this is calculated, it allows me and the 20,000 other drivers in the country to sustain a living from driving a taxi. While customers are participating in this fixed-fare market, they are going to destroy the taxi industry. They are going to destroy the guarantee that there will be people working at 3, 4 or 5 o' clock in the morning or 8 o'clock in the evening. It will become a part-time job and the only time you will get a taxi will be when mum and dad's car is out working at weekends or when the car is available.

I think it is a form of grooming, excuse the expression. What they are doing is getting the public used to something - something that is not necessarily good for them - and then they will take it away and introduce surge pricing. We are looking for support from the House to stop that and to stop the tech companies getting control of an industry. We do not want to be back here in two years' time saying we told you so. If we allow Uber and Free Now or other tech companies to get a hold of the industry, to manipulate it the way they are manipulating it and to get people used to a fixed fare and if, all of a sudden, the fixed fare is doubled, then nobody will be able to afford to go in a taxi at all. This is what this is about. Our taxi service is a public interest. It is a public service. It is affordable for the public. Just because Free Now or Uber happen to make it a bit cheaper at the moment, it is a loss leader. They are trying to get control of the industry. That is what they are trying to do and that is what they have done.

How do the witnesses use this moment to address other issues within the sector that have been articulated today?

Mr. Crotty talked about a national taxi strategy. There should be a strategy for the taxi industry because we only ever deal with things when we hit a crisis. We have an oversupply in Dublin at the moment. It is getting harder and harder to earn a reasonable income because I think every new licence comes into the city. A discussion with Mr. Crotty and the organisations that represent rural Ireland and the tourism industries is essential to provide a decent service but, as I said, it is only after crisis after crisis. The last time we were in here was when there was different crisis going on in the taxi industry.

The National Transport Authority has a taxi advisory committee that does not seem to make any decisions. It should have been dealing with this Uber, Free Now and Lyft issue long before the taxi drivers had to go out onto the streets before Christmas. In the same way, it should have dealt with the lack of rural taxis a long time before it became a huge issue for their businesses and organisations. The majority of us would totally agree with a national taxi strategy, once there is input from the taxi industry and it is not somebody else making the decisions on our behalf.

I want to bring Mr. McDonnell in.

It has to be brief.

The last speaker got a wee bit extra time.

Thirty seconds to a minute.

Mr. McDonnell referred to the CSO figures. Can he explain what that figure of 3,000 relates to. I was also interested in what he said about dispatch licensing. Is he saying that it should be pulled out and made a bigger factor in all of this? Will Mr. Cooley also comment on this issue?

Regarding the dispatch companies licensing requirements at the moment, it is one page out of the 73-page document that is the Taxi Regulation Act. To be quite honest, it is of its time but the compliances are produce a tax clearance certificate and develop a skills development programme. They pay a licence fee of €250 for the dispatch operator's licence and after that an annual fee of €125. If it expires, there is a restoration fee of €250, which I find bizarre because if a taxi licence expires, it is a €500 charge.

These are what I would deem as administrative box-ticking compliance issues for the award of a licence. I do not think that it is robust enough to cover the shenanigans regarding the interference with the maximum taxi fare.

I hope Mr. McDonnell gets the chance to tell people what he wants the Minister and the NTA to do.

I thank all the witnesses for coming here today, especially the taxi drivers who have come up from Kerry. I will have a question for them in a few minutes. First, I have a question for Mr. McGuinness and Mr. McDonnell. They mentioned when they were concluding about the taxi advisory committee and the way it operates. What kind of changes would they like to see in a review of the way that it operates? What powers would they like it to have? Would they like to see it outlawing certain practices, limiting commission, for example, or prohibiting tech fees? What changes would they like to see?

I sat on the Taxi Advisory Committee for five years and what I felt after leaving every meeting was that it was reactionary. It was never about forward-planning for the industry. Everybody knew that Uber and Freenow would attack the regulated industry here. The only people who did not seem to realise that this was coming was the taxi advisory committee. It should have been ahead of the game if it wanted to protect my livelihood and that of other taxi drivers. I would like to see it introduce a minimum commission charge because when you turn on the app in the morning you do not know what you are going to be charged on any given fare. You do not know what your income is going to be.

Should it be a minimum or maximum commission fare?

There should be a maximum commission that they are allowed to charge on any fare. That should be decided in the way my maximum fare is decided. Overall, the taxi advisory committee needs to be more proactive in the industry. It needs to involve more taxi drivers and taxi drivers' organisations in the discussions. There should be more input from the Department of Transport in the taxi advisory committee. It is minimal at the moment. A lot of the recommendations go to the NTA executive. There is no direct connection between the Department and the decision. It is like there is another layer of bureaucracy between the Department of Transport and the NTA.

I sat on the TAC for five years. I left it completely frustrated most days because a lot of the people on it do not know too much about how the industry works. They do not know about the maximum fares. They do not know about the standards that we have to implement. They do not know about the costs that I have.

I am short on time so I will ask Mr. McDonnell to continue with any views he might have on that. Maybe he could explain the discounts customers are getting. Is that a reduction on the amount the drivers are getting or the dispatch operator? How does that work?

I thank Deputy Daly for the follow-on questions on the taxi advisory committee. I suggest that going forward the junior Minister would attend each meeting so that whatever is being discussed at a taxi advisory committee meeting, the full facts are communicated to the Minister of the day.

Currently, there is the possibility of a class B fine being levied on people who discuss anything outside the committee that has been discussed within the committee. If driver representatives are to be fully representative of drivers and inform them of the goings on, how can they do that if they are subject to a class B fine, of an amount up to €5,000, for discussing matters that come up within the taxi advisory committee?

I do not believe passengers get discounts. The dispatch operators charge the drivers as much as they can, which is deducted from the driver's fare. The new practice of one company offering fixed fares is a bit of smoke and mirrors. I have an example here from the get-go of this whole fixed-fare scenario. A job was advertised on this particular platform for a wheelchair accessible vehicle going from Cabinteely to Dublin Airport. The price quoted to the driver was €39 via the M50. That would include the driver taking the hit on the toll as well. It was confirmed by the mileage advertised on the job. The fee to the passenger for this particular job was €70. The €70 fare gave the passenger comfort in the sense that if they came across traffic congestion on the M50 or if there was a reason for diversion that they would pay no more than €70. That is not a discount. That is probably the expected remuneration that the driver would get should he be doing the job privately. The driver is then paid €39. This is where they are making their money. It is not reducing the fare to €39 for the passenger, it is reducing the fare to €39 for the driver. Just to back it up, if the genuine fare is €70 and let us say, hypothetically speaking, the driver pays 10% of that, the dispatch company would make €7.

I get it, yes.

I can answer that.

Could Mr. Cooley do so very briefly as I want to ask the taxi drivers from Kerry some questions as well?

I sit on the TAC. New members have come on to the TAC in the last couple of months. Four dispatch operators are represented. They have no interest in fixing the legislation at the moment. They just want to look after their own interests. We have a representative from An Garda Síochána, which is brilliant. We have Tourism Ireland. We have two wheelchair users. We have two taxi drivers, who are working taxi drivers down the country. We have four national drivers. There is only one representative body from the taxi industry in the TAC at the moment.

Who appoints the members?

The NTA. The remit I was given was to listen and take notes but we are not to comment or cause any controversy.

Okay. My final question is for the Tralee Taxi Association. Arising from their statement, could the witnesses explain more about the effect the app is having in rural Ireland? What are their concerns about that?

I am sorry but could Mr. Boyle respond in 30 seconds?

Could he address if there is a shortage of drivers?

I probably addressed some of it already in replying to the previous question from Deputy Collins. One of the big problems in rural Ireland is cost, for example, for the replacement of vehicles. I have an example from a driver who sent me a costing. In 2018 he purchased a Ford Tourneo that cost him €43,000 to put on the road. With the ten-year rule that vehicle is going to have to be changed. Currently, that vehicle will cost him €80,000 to replace. There has been a 70% increase in the cost.

Is that due to more wear and tear on vehicles?

We also need to look at the ten-year rule. That should be extended to 15 years.

I thank Mr. Boyle.

I thank the witnesses for coming in for both aspects of this discussion. I met with a number of taxi drivers before Christmas so I have heard the concerns first-hand. I thank them for engaging with me on it. I also met the vintners and the Restaurants Association of Ireland. I see the issues that are being raised by both groups. I hope that in the coming weeks and months a resolution can be found to a number of the issues they face.

I might go to the taxi drivers first, if that is all right. One of the issues that was raised with me, which I would like to learn more about is Revenue and VAT and how tax responsibilities for drivers are affected by the new charging model. I refer to what the driver gets and what the meter says and how that could be conflated by Revenue. Is that something members have surfaced to individual representative bodies that they are concerned about? Have they vocalised that concern?

The only drivers who would be liable for VAT would be drivers who are using Uber because it does not pay income tax in the country. It runs all its tax affairs through Holland. That is why the drivers are opened up to a VAT charge at the end of every journey.

I do not know if this is the question the Deputy is asking but the charges at the moment are usually a commission. If it is 15%, for example, you pay VAT on the 15%.

Drivers do not know at the moment if they are on a fixed fare or if that is a commission. Do they pay 15% on the fare now or what part of it is the commission? It does create confusion.

It also means that drivers have to be VAT registered, which means that a driver now has to send off a return every two months. Currently, public taxi services are exempt. It does create a lot more work for the driver. There is uncertainty as to, if it is a fixed fare, how much of it is the commission. "Yes" is the answer.

I thank Mr. Waldron for that clarification.

The next follow-on question I have from that is the other concern raised with me has been around the size of the gap between what the consumer sees and what the driver receives at the end of a journey. I am coming from this also from the point of view of the consumer. Ultimately, our role as public representatives is to balance between the witnesses' livelihoods, what the consumer gets in terms of service and what businesses need in terms of a supportive infrastructure. Can the witnesses give me an idea of the variation there is in the gap between what the consumer sees and what the driver receives in terms of percentage? I have heard all sorts of figures over time in terms of how big that gap can be. I thought it had been a static percentage, but what I am hearing from taxi drivers who have engaged with me is that it depends and it can be quite variable. What research have the representative bodies done on that to get a handle on how much variation there is in that regard?

There is no transparency. That is part of the problem.

I am talking about anecdotal experience of National Private Hire and Taxi Association members. Has it done any collated research among all the members?

The examples we sent in to the committee are talking between a 10% or 20% difference between what the driver receives and what the passenger is charged. As the Deputy is well aware, it is illegal for me to charge anything over the maximum fare, but these companies are getting away with it through these additional charges that they charge the passenger for booking through their system. There are huge discrepancies. Some of it depends on what time you order the taxi or how busy the apps are at the moment. In general, it is probably about a 20% difference between what a driver receives and what the customers are charged, but it can vary depending on what time of night and how busy it is.

I thank Mr. McGuinness. I will go to Mr. Crotty and Mr. Cummins next. I want to talk about the supply issue in rural Ireland. This is something that has been escalated to me a number of times. They have members on the ground. We know there is an issue with hackneys in town. I spent a lot of my Christmas in County Mayo. I saw at first hand the issues there are in towns like Claremorris where people cannot access a taxi or a hackney service. In terms of the barriers to entry that they discussed, again, this is not a swipe at other drivers, I am talking about how we deal with the supply problem. Ultimately, nobody wants a taxi to be in the crosshairs here regarding regulation, looking at it in terms of we are always talking about it. Taxi drivers want to earn their living. Restaurants want access to taxis as well and we want fairness and accountability across the sector. What are the barriers of entry that the witnesses are hearing anecdotally from people that were in SPSVs in rural Ireland that are not there anymore? Why did they exit? What is the anecdotal stuff they are hearing there?

I thank the Deputy. From our perspective, it is how we get more taxis operating in rural Ireland. The WAV provision is one of those these we need to look at because you have to have a wheelchair-accessible taxi in order to get into the business in rural Ireland or anywhere in the country. There is a cost associated with that. That could be up to €60,000 to make the taxi a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. From our perspective, hospitality relies on taxis. We would like to see the strategy up and running. We would like to have everybody on board in that strategy. The first thing that we need to start is data. The only thing that we have in qualitative data is the number of licences. We do not have data to tell us how many taxis are actually operating now in Ireland at this moment in time.

There is a frustration expressed here-----

The Netherlands has it. Every taxi has what is called a little black box. It is GDPR-compliant. Their authority knows exactly how many taxis are working at a specific time. We are operating here from anecdotal evidence. We need to start at the basics.

The other point I wanted to make is that there is a lot of talk about price. The competition authority has to be brought into this debate. When are you talking about a price within a sector, the competition authority has a vested interest to look into that. Is it anti-competitive or competitive? There is an opportunity to bring the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission into this debate around the fixed price. It may be beneficial to the taxi drivers by bringing it in.

I thank Mr. Cummins. He and Mr. Cooley are members of the advisory group on SPSVs. One of my asks is for the group to start putting that data together. It is a blind spot that we flagged here previously. We do not have a strong handle on understanding the data on taxis. Ironically, we are relying on the dispatch operators to give us the information, which is not good.

My call to the representative bodies is that they need to pull together data, and not just anecdotal stuff. I urge them to co-ordinate on that. We are all coming at this from the same point of view. I worked in a pub for 12 years. Some of my best friends are taxi drivers. I know how hard they work. We ultimately want a sector that they all can rely on, that restaurants can bank on, that is core to the social infrastructure of rural Ireland and that the consumer benefits from. My clarion call to that membership would be to get that data pulled together as soon as possible.

The next member is Senator Collins. If no other member comes into the room, she will be followed by me, Deputy Boyd Barrett and Deputy Healy-Rae. I know Deputy O'Gorman will be coming back, but we will all have an opportunity. I ask members to bear with me.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. I can sense both their passion and their frustration at this situation. I am based in County Limerick. We might have one taxi driver in each of the towns that I know of. We definitely do not have a service like that in Dublin. It is like a novelty for me when I come to Dublin. I can get a taxi immediately. I see them whizzing by me on the street and they are on my phone. It is like being at Disneyland because at home in County Limerick, I will not get a taxi during the day. I will not get a taxi during the day on weekends. There is probably one service at night on weekends and only at certain times. To go back ten or 15 years ago, we probably had four or five different services just in Newcastle West in west Limerick. People knew they were definitely going to get to go out. I can see how this is affecting more than just the witnesses; this is affecting the pub owners and restaurant owners.

This is all linked. If people cannot get out and go somewhere and get home again, they are just going to stay at home. Taxi drivers, pubs and restaurants are losing money. If the witnesses could put it in a couple of words, why do they think over the past ten or 15 years so many taxis have been lost in rural areas? Cities are probably holding their own to a certain degree. Even in rural areas, the owners and the barmen in the pubs are taxi drivers as well. At the end of the night, if they want to get people into their pub, they are actually offering them lifts home free of charge.

I have said before that I sat on the taxi advisory committee for five years. Every two months, a report was done by the NTA into enforcement of taxi regulations. The majority of that report over the five years that I was there was into illegal activity happening in rural Ireland. Some of this illegal activity - I am not casting aspersions on anybody here - was being supplied by the restaurateur or publican. Gardaí from Templemore were used as fake customers to try to nab these illegal operators. The taxi driver that worked in the area would be called for the strangers in an establishment when John at the end of the bar would bring home the regulars. That drove a lot of taxi drivers out of the industry in rural Ireland. This is the first time I have heard about the taxi strategy. That is what we need to curtail the illegal activity that makes it sustainable for a couple of taxis to operate in a town.

In some instances, it could have been that barman saying he would give people a lift home.

It was not the barman. It was somebody at the end of the counter.

It was a customer. There was a ripple effect there. Trying to be good in one way took from the actual service.

I agree that the wheelchair entry level is probably too high for a business that is probably only going to be busy after a couple of days working. Maybe that should be looked at, but it should be looked at by the NTA. It goes back to it being proactive in this industry. It is supposed to be the governing body of this industry.

Every time there is a crisis we have to come here and ask the Chairman for different things. This should have been forewarned. I am sure they have been lobbying the NTA for probably months to ask for a bit of a relaxation of the standards even in rural Ireland. The NTA decided to go with this local area hackney licence which nobody has taken up, for whatever reason. The problem is those who run the industry. They do not listen to the people who actually want us. They do not listen to the people who provide the service and obviously they are not listening to the other side either. The NTA needs to be overhauled. There needs to be more involvement from the suppliers and the users.

I am assuming that Mr. McGuinness's organisation lobbies the NTA constantly.

Yes, constantly.

Is it getting any satisfaction?

The only reply we get from the NTA - and I could show the Senator examples - is unsigned replies to any inquiry that is made. We do not know who has sent out the reply. We have no idea, because we get unsigned responses. We tried to do a freedom of information request, FOI, to the NTA and it put every roadblock it could in our way. It was a simple request about who requested that the €2 pick-up fee be increased to €3. A lot of the drivers and I suspect that it was the very same companies that are now offering reduced booking fees and priority fees. Not one taxi driver I know wanted to increase the call-out fee. Certain companies did because they were going on about it enough and as soon as it was implemented they did away with it.

I know myself where I live I would pay an arm and a leg if I thought I could get a taxi.

This is what they are hoping for.

Yes, because when a company reduces a service it can increase the cost because it knows it will make it back because people are desperate. I am talking about the odd time I might want to go down for a drink or something and have nobody around who can pick me up. However there are also vulnerable people who need to get to medical appointments. I have seen a little bit of that as well in rural Ireland where we would have had full time taxi drivers who now work for the HSE doing all those HSE runs.

I am familiar with the area the Senator is from. As she is aware, in rural Ireland, a lot of the taxi drivers who operated were local and they were often family members and so on. Since Covid, a lot of those have either retired or maybe for medical reasons have stepped away.

There were definitely a few retirements there, yes.

If we look at the industry in general, those people are not being replaced by local people but by foreign nationals who do not recognise or are not aware of what happens in a local area like Newcastle West. The Local Link services are working quite well in rural Ireland in daytime. We probably need to look at expanding those possibly at night time.

It would be a really good idea to have the Local Link at night. I do know that there is one route, and I laugh at this. It is not funny, but I do laugh at it. There one route in west Limerick where you can get on the Local Link at one point but it never gets back to that point, so the question is how to get home. The following day I think it eventually passes it.

I thank our witnesses for the very strong focus they have placed on taxis as part of our national public transport system. That is hugely important. The question of the availability of taxis to commuters is something that has come out through all the questions. I know a lot of our Deputies and Senators representing rural constituencies have flagged real questions there. Availability is less of a challenge in Dublin, but there are times of the day and particularly times of the night when we recognise, particularly in those late hours, that there is real pressure.

One of the things that has been flagged with me is the concept of false scarcity on the apps, and particularly at times when the apps are saying that there are no taxis available, but if a person goes for the premium product, all of a sudden taxis are very available. I would be interested in the experiences of one or two of the organisations in terms of that. In his submission Mr. Waldron spoke in quite a lot of detail about the apps. Has his organisation come across that at all?

Absolutely, yes. Drivers would, for example, be hovering in an area, going around for a while waiting on a fare, and the app would ping. They would respond to the call, and the customer would get in and tell them that they had to pay a priority fee to get the taxi. This is anecdotal, if that is the word. It is happening regularly, that people are paying extra money for the same taxi to arrive at their door. They pay a priority fee for a taxi that has been hovering around waiting, but the algorithm on the app decides it can place an extra charge on the customer and that is what it does.

Is it Mr. Waldron's sense that this is at certain times of the day or in certain areas?

No, it can happen at any time and in any place. In regards to the supply, I just wanted to mention that 491 new drivers came into our industry last year. I do not think that is necessarily the answer for rural transport, where the problem is, but it is not open the doors, like other people would like to ask for. It is not open the doors to get more taxi drivers in; it is tackle the problem. In terms of strategy, for years we have been calling for a transport forum where taxi drivers who are part of the transport system can sit down with the bus companies and the train companies and start to talk about transporting people around the country.

And those linkages maybe.

Absolutely. For example, there are big plans talking about the metro in 2030. Will we provide taxis in 2030 or will we provide the taxi rank? Will there be taxi ranks at any of the Luas stops? Will there be taxi ranks at train stations around the country? Will there be enough of them is basically what we are asking.

I would like to come back to the question of false scarcity. I saw Mr. Brennan and Mr. McGuinness nodding in agreement there. Would they have any kind of take on this issue of false scarcity?

As Mr. Waldron said, it is done all the time to create this anxiety among the passengers to make them think that they have to pay extra. The company gets that money, not the taxi driver. As Mr. Waldron says, when I press the button, I accept the fare. The customer is the one who gets into the car and tells me they have been waiting 20 minutes or half an hour because they had to keep refreshing the app.

The taxi driver has no idea that they have now become a priority and they are not seeing anything extra in terms of money. Is that the case?

Yes. Not too long ago, I had an incident with a well-known celebrity. I dropped him at his house and he accused me of overcharging him. I showed him what I was getting and I said, that is the app doing that.

It must be really frustrating for Mr. McGuinness and his members to be copping the blame for that.

I was getting €29, exactly what was on the fare. The celebrity thought I was charging €56, so I had to actually show him what I was getting.

He probably thought Mr. McGuinness saw him as an easy mark.

Yes, but it is happening constantly. Long term, this is the way the app companies operate. All of us here are taxi drivers. We all drive massive numbers of tourists, particularly from the United States, in the tourist season. I have not met one American tourist who thanks God that Uber operates in their town or village. They all talk about their regret that the local taxi service has gone, because they are overcharged and they only get taxis when the app decides they get them.

I know it is not the central issue in the submissions but I would like to address the issue of safety. When I use taxis, that is often where the conversation goes, particularly at night, about the differing perceptions that many tax drivers have of their own safety. A lot of people tell me that they do not do the late nights any more because they do not feel safe and it is just not worth it any more. When taxi drivers feel there is an issue, what is their ability to escalate it with An Garda and the like? I would like to get the witnesses' sense of that. This is anecdotal but my sense is that one of the reasons we are facing pressures late at night in Dublin is that more and more taxi drivers are deciding not to go out after 11 p.m. because they do not feel safe. I may be wrong on that as it is anecdotal. Is that the case? I would also like the witnesses' wider views on safety issues. I think Mr. Cooley wanted to come in on this.

To go back to the complaint process, let us say someone has a complaint with a taxi driver at night time and realises the next morning that they have been overcharged. The process with the NTA to report cases of being overcharged, a disagreement with the driver or being thrown out of the taxi is non-existent.

It is non-existent. First of all, there is no direct telephone line to the Garda. If a person is on trouble, no matter where that person is, he or she has to dial 999 and then be put on a system, whereas especially in urban areas in Dublin, where passengers can be hostile with drink, drugs and everything else that is going on, a direct Garda telephone line at night-time to help taxi drivers would be very helpful to let them know they have protection.

Has that ask been made of the Garda?

As I said, I have sat on the taxi advisory committee for the last four years and we have discussed it, but there has been no solution. I could not even get an answer on lost property.

Okay. I will certainly follow up on that.

If someone loses their phone, which is very prevalent now because people have phones in the cars everywhere, it is down to them to turn on Find My iPhone and go look for their phone themselves. It creates a problem with the taxi driver arriving at their house the next morning.

I thank Deputy O'Gorman. Time is of the essence, so I am going to go straight to Senator Cosgrove. We have four people left to speak. Four times seven is 28 minutes and that will bring us up to midday.

I am really sorry that I had to step into the Seanad there. I thank the witnesses very much for coming in. I am absolutely delighted they are here and that there are so many of them. This big group of people would not be coming together unless it was a massive issue. To me, it is a very clear choice whereby we are either going to support multinational corporations or we are going to support taxi drivers. It is very clear. We can see the way things are across the world and how our over-reliance on multinational corporations has left us in this position now with Trump and America and what is going on at the moment. We can either decide we are going to set up a public service or not. I am from a rural constituency. I know what Mr. Boyle spoke of and the reliance older people and disabled people have on transport to make hospital appointments and for their general livelihood. It is a pity the National Transport Authority, NTA, is not here as part of this so that it could see this. Am I right in thinking everyone here is in support of having a publicly developed app administered by the NTA?

Absolutely. It was the suggestion from the first meeting. When I went into the taxi advisory council three or four years ago, I floated the idea because I always knew the danger of Uber coming into the country. I asked why we do not set up our own app that the NTA controls, which it has for trains and buses. It does not seem to want to invest in that idea, however.

It is not recognised as a public good. Particularly in rural Ireland, taxis are a public service.

In the future, definitely, it would be a good idea.

The NTA is actually piloting an app at the moment in Killarney, even though it is using larger public service vehicles as in minibuses and so on. It is disappointing that it did not choose a more rural location and pilot it. I believe strongly that an NTA-run app would solve a lot of issues, particularly in rural Ireland. It could link a lot of things likes train services and bus services and Local Links where it would drive the business as well. Coming from a tourist county, that would be vital too for us in County Kerry. Personally, I think any rural taxi driver can see the effect the multinational corporations are having with these apps. They are bringing the drivers out of rural Ireland and into the bigger towns and bigger cities. In Tralee town, for example, we have 15 taxis that either own or rent a taxi but do not operate in the town.

It is the same in Sligo. After a certain point of the night or a certain time during the day, there is not a hope of getting a taxi.

It is also a proper form of data collection. If the NTA had its own app, then it would know how many taxis are on the street and where the pinch points were. It would get proper data, not data fed to it by an app company like Freenow or Uber that has a commercial interest. It would have its own data. That is one of the positives from the Government's point of view and from the public's point of view.

I agree with Mr. Waldron. It is luring people in to get addicted to fixed pricing and then surge pricing and dynamic pricing will start kicking in as soon as people are hooked. I missed some of the debate and I know the witnesses have covered a lot of this already. I am delighted that they are coming in and that they have a voice because it needs to be said. Is the NTA open to listening?

Why ring it up?

Is it listening, however? Is it open to having a booking app?

No. There is no-----

There is no engagement.

We have even floated ideas of setting up a programme. If we want a professional industry and if we want to invest in it, we proposed having an apprenticeship programme rather than having people do their test online from a different country. People can basically do their studying for their taxi licence online. They can arrive and pay someone €500 to teach them how to beat the system and when they beat the system, they become a taxi driver overnight. They will be told, "here you go, out you go, drive a car, good luck, we will see you later", and someone will collect the money for their SGS and NCT and calibration for their meter but is not going to help them out in any way. There is absolutely no investment. We are supposed to be part of Transport for Ireland but we are not subsidised in any way.

Even on the disability grants that were spoken about, can Mr. Cooley see the impact Uber and Freenow have had on wheelchair accessible vehicles?

I can give the answer from the Irish Wheelchair Association. It is totally against the concept of Uber running the country because it is not helping out. If the Senator looks at the apps, they are not very wheelchair accessible. They are not pro that at all. They are only about making money.

I am 100% with Mr. Cooley.

In relation to wheelchair accessibility, it has been suggested for years that an app should be set up for wheelchair accessible vehicles specifically. Sometimes, although people have to pay a lot of money for the car, they do not particularly do the service that is required.

That would be all part of the same app. That could be an option in it.

Absolutely, yes.

One of the issues with wheelchair accessibility is that the grant scheme is oversubscribed year after year. Last year, it was closed out after 20 minutes. This year, it is a lottery system.

Drivers want to have this option but there are not enough supports for it.

They do, yes, but I suppose one of the consequences of deregulation and opening up the national licence was the arrival of rental companies, which seem to have garnered a way of getting most of these licences and then renting them out to drivers. I personally think, and the Tralee Taxi Association would be calling for this, that new entrants should be given a specific route to get access for this funding. If someone is in rural Ireland, there should be a priority for that.

One of the interesting things as well with the NTA is freedom of information requests over the last couple of weeks. They have been made about the recording of fixed fares on the taxi apps' algorithms, how fare compliance is monitored and whether the general data protection regulation, GDPR, and EU data protection measures were considered. There is absolutely no data whatsoever on those. There is nothing coming back.

It is hands-off.

There is a serious gap in how it is dealing with where technology has moved from ten years ago to where it is today. It has been left behind and it needs to catch up big time.

It is great, however, that so many of the witnesses' organisations are coming together. Are Mr. Cummins and Mr. Crotty also supportive of there being an NTA public app?

We have absolutely no issue with whatever will make the system work. I have listened to everyone speak so far. I want to support Mr. McGuinness beside me. He is the only one today who has talked about the need for a strategy. It is what we have said from the minute we came in. The Senator asked whether the NTA listens. The NTA will do what the Government tells it to do. If it is a State agency, it will be given its riding instructions and strategy by the Government and Oireachtas, and everyone's opinion should be taken into account in the process of that. However, the one I see being entirely ignored in the course of today's hour and a half of discussion is the customer. There are people out there today and every day who are not getting any taxi, whether they have all the apps or no app or whether they are in urban or rural areas. In a lot of cases, there are people being left. They have the money in their hand and are happy to pay it, and there is no service being provided.

There is no way.

That is the big issue, and we need to deal with that. All the other stuff is granular, which we can fix in the process. It is not an us-and-them scenario in terms of us as business operators versus the taxi people. We are not against each other. We are trying to provide a good service for our customers and so are they, but we are working in a circumstance where the system is not working. That is where Government has to come in.

I thank Mr. Crotty. I will take my own round now before I let in Deputy Boyd Barrett, and I am sure Deputy Healy-Rae will come back as well. I have to ask the question. We have six representative bodies here today, although I will not name them out. There are serious issues at heart here. I cannot ask everybody the question, but I am going to ask it of Mr. Cooley. Why does the taxi industry not speak with one voice?

The issues are so serious; it is a valid question.

Mr. McGuinness and I were discussing this at coffee this morning.

Why is it so fragmented? I have to ask the question and I can only ask Mr. Cooley.

It is a complicated answer because taxi drivers are sole stakeholders and sole traders. They are individuals. We find they come to our office or the phone rings only when there is a problem. Some taxi drivers do not even know there are unions out there to help them out. We would help them out on tax, insurance or any issues they would have with gardaí or the NTA - any issues they would have with everything and anything. However, it is up to the individual who he wants to attach himself too. If it was made statutory to be a part of one or all, which would not be a whole lot of money to ask to be represented-----

Why is the leadership of each of the six or seven organisations not coming together to form a single organisation, or at least an umbrella group, so that taxi drivers speak with one voice?

Mr. Waldron and Mr. McGuinness and I are very close when it comes to any kind of issue. We are basically on the same page with everything. There is no conflict of interest at all.

I am only saying it because as Chair, when I was putting together today's hearing, I was quite taken aback by how fragmented it is.

That is because there is no investment. As I said before, we are not part of any-----

If the witnesses want to quickly come in on that, I think it is good question.

It is a great question.

It is a good question. What I have found over the years when there are huge issues like this and like the Covid shutdown, the representative bodies - in particular myself, Mr. Waldron and Mr. Cooley, and even the taxi alliance of Ireland - have all worked together. As soon as there is an issue that is going to affect the majority of taxi drivers, we work very closely. Other than that, I could return the question. Why are there so many political parties?

That is a good answer. I think there is merit in all organisations giving serious consideration to coming together under one umbrella group.

I am not going to repeat all the questions asked. I will comment further in my concluding remarks. What jumped out for me is the urgent need for a national strategy to address all the issues. I fully support Mr. Crotty in that the customer needs to be at the heart of that national strategy as well.

I will come back to the imbalance in rural Ireland, where I am from, in terms of supply, as well as the impact that imbalance has on social inclusion and the tourism and hospitality sector. There is an urgent need for a national strategy with co-ordinated policy interventions to be delivered in a timely manner. The individual who is waiting for the taxi is focused on price but there has to be a recognition of the need for a business model and driver income sustainability. I think I mentioned that in my opening remarks. If there is no business, we will not have taxis. It is as simple as that. We have seen the decline in taxi numbers.

I want to ask each group what its number one ask in a national taxi strategy would be. I will go around the table, starting with Mr. Cummins and Mr. Crotty.

From our perspective, it would be an overhaul of the hackney licence to make it more affordable, to make it easier to get people into the taxi business in rural Ireland and to take on board all vested interests.

It would be a focus on access so that people are able to get into the industry. At the minute, you must get the WAV licence which is expensive to buy. If the Government is serious about everyone having a WAV vehicle, it cannot have a grant scheme that opens on 2 January and closes 15 minutes later.

Am I right in saying that 25% of current licensed vehicles are currently accessible? What would Mr. McGuinness's number one ask be?

It would be pre-planning for the industry. There is a need to look at the industry going forward and basically let the industry and the people who use our service have a bigger say in what direction the industry takes.

That is hugely important. I mentioned the consumer but of course the industry itself - taxi drivers and taxi associations - should be an integral part of and fully consulted in any national strategy.

I would love for the NTA to take control of the taxi industry as a whole. At present, it is the wild west. Many different stakeholders are trying to make money out of the industry but will not invest in it. It comes back down, at the last bit, to customer experience. It is all down to customer experience. That is the nub of it all. The customers are getting frustrated, the drivers are getting frustrated - everyone is getting frustrated - and the NTA is not taking control of the situation.

The Government needs to be cognisant of the harms being suffered by taxi drivers at the moment. If I had one ask for something to happen immediately, it would be a change in legislation that caps the amount of money that facilitators and dispatch companies can take from a driver's pocket in commission. It has already been established what we need to earn and what the customer can bear. It has gone to national consultation.

Obviously, I endorse everything my colleagues have been saying but there is also the safety aspect of it. For years, we have been calling for better communication and liaison officers with An Garda Síochána but we have not had them. There is a transport police being set up and we have not been consulted.

I would certainly agree with a national strategy on transport, particularly with the small public service vehicles. What is probably needed now is a complete review of the NTA and the SPSV operation. If I had one ask, it would be for serious consideration to be given to a national app that would link in all our transport services. Taxi ranks in rural Ireland are starting to disappear. Responsibility for these matters tends to fall between two stools - between the NTA and the local authorities - so that is something that would need to be looked at also.

I thank all the witnesses. I might add the whole area of public service obligation as well. The next speaker, who has been waiting patiently, is Deputy Boyd Barrett.

I thank the Chair for responding to the taxi drivers and facilitating this important discussion. I also thank the contributors. I should declare my bias in that I have known Mr. McGuinness, Mr. Waldron and Mr. Brennan for many years. I know Mr. Brennan by reputation and not as well personally. I am unapologetically on the side of the drivers who I believe are fighting in the best interest of taxi drivers and, ultimately, the consumer in terms of the safety of passengers and the prevention of profiteering by the app companies.

My first question is to Mr. Crotty and Mr. Cummins. Their desire for a national strategy is agreed by the drivers. The concern about lack of taxi drivers in rural Ireland is accepted, although urban settings are very different. I do not understand why they have linked up with Uber and Bolt and I would like to understand. Can they honestly tell me what good Uber and Bolt bring to this scenario, rather than direct engagement with the people sitting in this room who are open to addressing the problems the witnesses have? Uber is a company based in California that made €9 billion in profits last year. Bolt is a company based in Estonia that I think has revenues of €2 billion. They do not work through the Irish tax system. They do not provide drivers, they do not train drivers and they do not invest. They do absolutely nothing except make profit at the expense of the driver and the consumer with technology and priority charges. Why have the witnesses aligned with them? Why would they not endorse the call of the taxi drivers here for a not-for-profit app run by the NTA, which would surely be a win-win for the drivers and for the passenger? It would mean the drivers get a proper livelihood but there is also regulation preventing the profiteering we are getting with these priority charges.

The drivers might elaborate on what we know internationally about Uber, in particular, but some of the others as well. What is down the road for the passenger and what has already started to happen with surge pricing?

Perhaps the witnesses will speak about this. I have heard anecdotal examples of Uber in other jurisdictions taking 50% of the fare. What the driver gets is driven down and there is enormous surge pricing. I have also seen examples of surge pricing already starting, with priority charges of €9 or €10, as well as technology charges. I saw one of €22. Mr. McGuinness explained earlier that the priority charge is a movable feast. Two people could be waiting for a taxi and one could be waiting longer than the other but if one person says they will pay a priority charge of €20 while the other can only afford €5, the person with more money will get the taxi regardless of how long they have been waiting. Surely we do not want this. Perhaps the witnesses can elaborate a little on this.

Will the drivers say something about ranks? The number of ranks is being reduced all the time but if people get a taxi at a rank it is the best deal. The driver gets the fare but it is a regulated fare and we do not have these companies taking a commission out of it. If we had more ranks, we would have availability of taxis and not the profiteering.

I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for his question. I am not here to represent, Uber, Bolt or Freenow. The coalition was established almost two years ago to try to look at, and raise, the issue of our customers finding it hard to get taxis late at night in the late-night economy that pubs and restaurants are dependent on. Deputy Boyd Barrett will have an opportunity in two weeks' time when Freenow, Bolt and Uber will be before the committee, and he can ask them his questions about their operations.

Our main issue is that late at night, and at some times of the year, our customers cannot get home. We have done Red C polling of our customers and female customers want a door-to-door service. They do not particularly want to take a bus home, get off at a bus stop and then have to walk 500 m or 700 m. These are our customers and this is what they have raised with us. This is why we are highlighting that there is a shortage of taxis at certain times of the day and certain times of the year. In certain parts of the country there are no taxis whatsoever. This is why we are here at the committee to raise these issues.

Regarding taxi ranks, we have noticed a reduction over the past 20 years, particularly in main-footfall areas. Some of the largest ranks in Dublin were removed from O'Connell Street and St. Stephen's Green. The College Green rank is probably the busiest rank and this is probably going within the next year or two. It is making it almost impossible for customers to walk a couple of yards from bars, restaurants and shops to get a taxi. At a minimum it will be €4.50 cheaper to walk to a taxi stand. I encourage people to do it, particularly when they are in the city centre and it is hard to get into closed-off areas. We need more taxi stands in the city and not fewer. They might be smaller taxi stands but we need more of them.

Will Mr. McGuinness explain why a not-for-profit NTA-run app would be a win-win for the driver and the consumer?

Every driver would be on it. For example, every driver could register for it when they pay their SGS fee. There would be a lot more taxis on it. Despite the fact they are supposed to be great for the taxi driver, the majority of taxi drivers do not participate in Bolt or Freenow.

Can I just say one thing about the safety issue is that-----

No, I am sorry but we are really constrained on time.

I welcome all of the witnesses. To explain, I do not speak until last because I am not a member of the committee. They are the rules and that is fine and I am very appreciative that the Cathaoirleach lets me in. My background is that we have had a PSV licence in our family. My father had one since 1956 for the provision of school transport and that is all we do. I understand what taxi drivers have to comply with, the bars and all the regulations they must comply with, and that they must have their vehicles in order and all of this. I appreciate very much what Mr. Boyle said about the ten-year rule. A number of people were on to me to say their cars were ten years old and they had to replace them before the end of last year. They were making the case that during Covid they were very little used. One particular man had his hip done and he was out of commission for practically 12 months. Surely the case has to be made for a vehicle that passes all of the tests. Why must the car be changed just because of its age? We all know that one car could have 1 million miles done while another may not have done 100,000 miles. A newer car could have far more miles done. This has to be looked at.

There are several other issues. I agree 100% that if another type of taxi app, such as Uber, comes in that does not have to comply with the same rules then that is wrong. I do not know how we are going to address it but I can understand that there are far fewer taxis in places such as Kilgarvan. Senator Collins spoke about Newcastle West. It is the same everywhere. They are not to be seen at night or during the week, and then at the weekends they go to the bigger towns and they are too busy there. We just do not have public transport. If there is anything I can do, I ask people to send me emails personally and I will always do my best. I understand the problem and I can see the issue. It is about how we combine together to deal with it.

I see Mr. Cummins and I understand his business. People cannot go out if they cannot get home and we understand this. I do not know how we are going to deal with it. It is a massive problem. It is not often Deputy Boyd Barrett and I agree on an issue but we do agree on this. I know the Cathaoirleach wants to speak also. I am with the witnesses for whatever I can do for them. I would only be grateful to be asked and I would like to be asked.

This is the first time Deputy Healy-Rae has finished ahead of time. There are a lot of firsts here today. Not alone this but I am getting worried because he is agreeing with Deputy Boyd Barrett.

I wanted to leave time for the Cathaoirleach.

I appreciate this and time is of the essence.

I must go as well.

For the past few years, we have been asking the NTA to extend age restrictions for cars affected during Covid. There will be 751 cars going off the road at the end of 2026. Cars registered in 2016 will not get an extension. Last year, cars registered in 2015 were in the same situation but because it went into the Fine Gael manifesto, they were given an extension. I wish someone would draw up a new manifesto to give these people an extension.

For my own knowledge, while 161-registered vehicles have to be replaced, do they have to be replaced with wheelchair-accessible vehicles?

No.

We all know that new cars are not as good as the older cars.

Time is of the essence and there are restrictions because another meeting is happening here so we do not have time for responses. It is one minute to noon and I have one minute does sum up. How do I do so? Reflecting on my notes, I thank all of the witnesses for their very frank contributions. It is very clear that we do not have one single taxi problem but a systemwide imbalance. Demands exist, particularly outside of Dublin and particularly in the evenings and at weekends. A taxi system that does not work for drivers ultimately will not work for passengers. I do not think we should lose this message and vice versa, regulation must serve the public interest.

We will reflect carefully on today's evidence. Obviously, we will have a hearing next week as well. I will discuss with members of the committee the recommendations we will make to the Minister and the National Transport Authority, including on what I said was the number one issue for me, which is the national taxi strategy, how app platforms need to be regulated, how rural availability can be supported, which is very important for me, and how barriers to entry can be reduced without compromising on safety and standards.

I thank all of the witnesses today for their engagement and their time. We will revert on a future date.