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Irish Taxi Council,

61 North Strand Rd, Dublin 3.

Protest Action Thursday 01/10/09

The Irish Taxi Council is a fully constituted, democratically elected and officially recognised non profit representative body of 22 Taxi associations from around the 26 Counties.

Members of the Irish Taxi Council will be having a protest on Thursday next the 1st of Oct.

Drivers will be coming to Dublin from every part of the Country to highlight and express their anger at the lack of action by this Government to address our problems. Every day our situation grows worse, families are breaking up and our friends and colleagues are taking their own lives as a final solution that no one should ever have to take. The families of our friends and colleagues should not have to endure this pain and suffering and should not be mourning the loss of their loved ones and the Taxi industry should not be mourning the loss of such good people. The genuine people of the Taxi industry will not tolerate this situation any further. We urge all drivers to seek help when the burden seems too much. Talk to your family, a trusted friend, Aware or the Samaritans. Please seek help.

In the mean time the people responsible for our situation do nothing! We have talked to anyone and everyone and no one cares. The Regulator has told us she will not meet any representative body until after the present process is finished. The Commissioner says that the process will not finish until “later on this year”,

WE HAVE WAITED LONG ENOUGH.

The Commissioners proposals do NOT address the main problems in the industry and only address the hidden criticisms of her office contained in the Goodbody report ie, enforcement, wheelchair accessibility and fast tracking of standards. The Commissioner has taken no notice of our concerns and does not address the biggest problems we have in the industry,

1. Illegal operators operating in unlicensed areas and putting our customers’ safety in peril!

2. Double jobbers (taking the food off full time drivers tables and giving two fingers to the Irish citizens taking it on the chin for this Governments greed and mistakes)!

3. Making every SPSV driver sit a test before 2012 when the previous Commissioner said (2004, witnessed) ”he only wanted people that had entered the business post the 2003 Taxi Regulation act to do so”. Now they want to get rid of our best drivers and replace them with who knows?

4. Criminal and fraudulent access to the industry through the fleet rental providers who do not care in the least about the industry!

5. Making the industry wait for TEN MONTHS for NO CHANGES to address our problems!

6. Increasing the cost of the SPSV Driver License fee to €250.00 while reducing the life of the license to 3 years without any consultation.
If you are a full time Taxi driver support your colleagues on Thursday and send this Government and its Minister who has been elected by the people of this Country, but, refuses to meet a legally constituted and democratically elected industry representative body, the message it deserves:

THE IRISH TAXI INDUSTRY HAS HAD ENOUGH! WE ARE NOT TAKING ANY MORE!
The Joint Taxi Council of Ireland (NTDU, ITDF, NPHTA and SIPTU) were sent a letter on the 24/09/09 by the Irish Taxi Council asking for, in the interest of unity in the industry, the support of their members for this protest. We would ask all concerned drivers that have an interest in their futures to join us in supporting this action.

It is intended that drivers will arrive at Kildare St at 8 a.m. on Thursday to request that the Minister for Transport, Minister Noel Dempsey TD, (an elected official and servant of the Citizens of the Republic of Ireland) tell us what he intends to do to address this urgent situation. Failing a response from Minister Dempsey we will seek the response of An Taoiseach Mr. Brian Cowan (an elected official, leader of the Government and servant of the Citizens of the Republic of Ireland).


The protest will finish at an undetermined time.