The real increase in the number of taxis in Dublin since I entered the industry in 2003 is not accurately reflected in the published statistics. Due to the new national numbering system, there is no way of knowing how many taxis are operating in Dublin city. Subjectively, in the past five years, particularly overnight at weekends, actual taxi numbers on Dublin's streets have, without exaggeration, doubled.
As a result, the city's hopelessly inadequate taxi ranks are no longer merely overflowing, but are frequently deluged with taxis queuing to get on, causing congestion, obstruction and traffic chaos. Queuing off the rank is illegal and subject to sanction by the Garda and taxi commission inspectors. However, it is now impossible to earn a living as a Dublin taxi driver without queuing illegally off the ranks.
The ranks are our places of work. Imagine if civil servants or factory workers queuing to enter their work places risked fines for vagrancy. It is laughable but that is the dilemma Dublin taxi drivers face because of excessive taxi numbers combined with inadequate taxi rank spaces.
Due to the frequent impossibility of getting onto a rank, taxi drivers are forced to cruise the streets plying for hire. This system may work in London and New York but in Dublin, it does not. In the main, Dubliners are in the habit of going to the rank for a taxi. Consequently, cruising is highly cost-ineffective, compounding the need for drivers to queue illegally off the ranks to earn a living.
Additionally, high numbers of cruising taxis exacerbate traffic congestion and pollution in the city. At night, the city streets are often a sea of taxi lights, frequently in traffic jams of their own making. At peak times, it is hard to imagine how the situation could get worse. However, with more taxis coming on to the road every week, worse it will get.
Taxi drivers are increasingly unable to earn enough to meet their financial commitments. Subsequently, drivers are working longer, and in some cases excessive, hours. This is patently bad for their health, for their family lives and for public safety, and with increased numbers of taxis out at any given time, the problems of traffic congestion are further compounded.
In the current economic downturn, demand is inexorably decreasing as taxi numbers continue to grow, meaning that drivers will be increasingly forced to work more hours, until finally the butter will spread no further over the bread and the industry will implode in anarchy. The first essential step in preventing that outcome is an immediate moratorium on the issue of taxi plates, including measures to prevent the value of existing plates inflating.
Finally, I want to make an observation on the issue of racism in the taxi industry. I have been a trade unionist all my adult life and as such I am vehemently anti-racist. So I am deeply concerned about a situation in the Irish taxi industry which I believe is fomenting racism, both in the industry and in the wider community.
There have been reports in the press and on the Internet of passengers avoiding taxis with non-national drivers. I have seen this on taxi ranks, where people will wait until a non-national driver's position at the front of the line is taken by somebody else. My initial reaction was outrage. However, over the past months, having listened to reports from passengers, I have come to realise that such actions are motivated less by innate racism than by bad experiences.
The evidence is anecdotal, but its persistence and repetitive character indicates that there is indeed "something rotten in the state of Denmark". Every day I hear complaints from passengers that a non-national driver has not known some basic Dublin destination, including recently Lucan, Foxrock, Rathfarnham, Swords, the RDS, the Radisson St. Helen's Hotel, and even Ballsbridge. Then, when the passenger has given directions, the driver has had to be told every turn. Alternatively, the driver has taken off in a completely wrong direction, and when directed to the destination, has aggressively insisted on being paid the full inflated fare. There are so many of these stories from such a wide variety of passengers that the weight of evidence is overwhelming.
Clearly, it is impossible for anyone who has legitimately passed the Dublin PSV test, even on his or her first day out, not to know where Ballsbridge is, let alone how to get there from St. Stephen's Green. In which case, are such drivers illegal cosies without PSV licences and insurance? Have they accessed all the PSV test papers - I believe there are a limited number - and learned the answers by rote? Has someone else sat the PSV test for them? It seems many non-national drivers do not have an adequate knowledge of the capital city, which begs the question as to whether they have PSV licences and if they do, how did they get them.
In light of the above, it is clear that the best safeguard in future would be the early introduction of a practical PSV driving test, including a face-to-face interview with random questions on destinations and routes and an assessment of proficiency in English. In the meantime, repeated negative passenger experiences with non-national taxi drivers will only serve to promote negative attitudes to non-national people generally, which will in turn contribute to the broader advancement of xenophobia and racism in Irish society. For this reason, as well as to quell the mounting sense of injustice among legitimate taxi drivers at unqualified or illegal non-national drivers cheating the system and depriving them of income at a time of increasing hardship, this matter must be addressed and redressed by the responsible authorities as a matter of urgency.
