I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 26 together.
The Road Traffic (Public Service Vehicles) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations, 2000, establish a revised regime for taxi licensing. The regulations do not place or authorise any restriction on the numbers of new taxi licences which shall be granted by local licensing authorities. Under the regulations, the granting of taxi and wheelchair accessible taxi licences continues to be the responsibility of individual local licensing authorities to whom applications for taxi licences are made.
I am advised that some 2,784 additional taxi and wheelchair accessible taxi licences had been granted by Dublin Corporation under the new regulations by end March 2001 and that satisfactory increases in licence numbers are also taking place in the rest of the country.