Taxi Protest Dublin Monday 2/2/09 8.30am

by Amanda Sun Feb 01, 2009 15:34 woods.amanda1 at gmail dot com

I am on of the unfortunate people who had to experience quite the opposite of the complaint being made by artical. By this I mean that I was in town last night , Saturday 01/02/2009, and spent about an hour freezing in a rank at Stephens Green only to be passed by empty taxi cabs who weren't picking anyone up! Instead they turned at the rank and parked across the street. When asked what was going on they said they had been prebooked. Funnily enough they still managed to take people who left the rank queue and went over to the cars!!! Fed up and ice cold we walked as far as the Davenport Hotel before a taxi decided to stop....there were so many people on the streets it was unreal. So why doesn't the taxi man complaint stand? Where were all the empty taxis you complain about? Why were taxis actively refusing business last night? I can only conclude that there is no problem and that sympathy will not lie on your side having treated the every day punters as you did last night!!!

by Frank Sun Feb 01, 2009 16:41

A capacity crowd at Croke Park last night in tandem with your usual Saturday revellers eats into the taxi supply. Saying there is not enough taxis because of a difficulty in getting one of a Saturday night rings rather hollow. Should there be a bus for every bus stop?

by Worker Sun Feb 01, 2009 17:00

Taxidrivers are not workers, they are self employed. So how can they go on strike? Strike against themselves?

The Irish Taxi Drivers "Union" only represents 10% of taxi drivers. These are the guys who want to back to the old days. In those days some taxi "drivers" held up to 100 taxi plate licences and were employers of hundreds of people. What you got in those days was not a taxu strike but a lock out .

No going back to the old days.

by Kyle - ripped off ltd Sun Feb 01, 2009 22:19

who cares? for years taxi drivers got away with being greedy criminals before deregulation....then when when deregulation came in taxi fares skyrocketed even further...and as stated its still difficult to get a taxi on a saturday night in january??! i might go to the protest.... with a box of rotting vegetables for protesting taxi drivers who are tasting sweet karma

by Jim Mon Feb 02, 2009 11:17

What good reason is there to restrict the numbers of taxis?

Why not restrict the number of hamburger joints, dentists or plumbers while your at it?

Why shouldn't the wage and number of jobs be set by supply and demand, like everyone else's job is?

by the fred Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:16

to the posters who are going on about greedy taxi drivers and the clown threatening to throw rotting veg at people trying to protect their livelihood..this policy of thatcherism that Fianna Fail are set upon with no regulation(the taxi regulator is a joke) will come to all levels of irish society and then you will be in the same position as these men and women... when you see solictors going on the dole something has gone wrong bigtime....you lot are probably in a cushy civil service job and never have to worry....

by Mr Man Mon Feb 02, 2009 12:23

If you are wondering why it is a bad thing to give out unlimited taxi licenses, go to Galway, where rampant over issuing of licenses has crippled the viability of supporting a family as a taxi driver.

by the fred Mon Feb 02, 2009 13:56

quote by jim

"Why shouldn't the wage and number of jobs be set by supply and demand, like everyone else's job is?"

Exactly...and at the moment the there is an over supply of taxis on the streets...and i'm sure i don't need to spell it out that if people are losing their jobs they won't be using taxis or going out quite so often.....so there is a very good case to cap the licences... this is a win/win situation for only one group...The Government......they get to keep a few more people off the dole and dole figures down and get the revenue of the newcomer into the industry buying their taxi plate..the real crime here is the offer of false hope to people losing their jobs that they can go out and make a living from driving a taxi to replace their previous job....!!!... there i also a very good case in why we are allowing non national/non EU drivers onto the road at all...in the U.S. you have to prove the there is no american qualifed to do the job first before the non national gets it...if the construction industry was forced into adopting this policy the country as a whole would benefit from this as it would reduce dole figures even more and bring tax reciepts up and this also would help reduce the numbers of taxis on the roads....but thats Fianna fail for you...always there to help their pals in big business and screw the little guy..at least those clowns in the green party will be wiped out like the P.D.'s in the next election......

by Worker Mon Feb 02, 2009 14:15

Fred shows the real racist agenda - some taxidrivers don't want immigrants to be allowed to drive taxis. Theres been plenty of racist bile directed at immigrant taxidrivers by the ITDU.

There were only a couple of hundred people on the march today including families of drivers. They do not represent the feelings of taxidrivers and should be ignored.

by jack Tue Feb 03, 2009 13:54

throwing rotten veg because u cant get a taxi sat night sorry for inconvenience but
I drive a taxi
Most of the week is spent in a rank .....a rank is a Q
I can spend an hour on stephens green rank during off peek {which is any time other than sat nite between 1 and 3 o clock} and some person gets in and wants to go to dame street ,then pays me wit coppers they found behind the couch,,5 euro made and back to the rank for another hour of crossword,singin to meself,dreamin of winning the lotto,wondering will the bank take my house back soon,drinkin red bull to stay awake ,wondering will the kids forgive me wen they grow up cause i never see them anymore,wondering how much i can stretch out o these tyres cause i def cant afford the 400 for the new ones,wondering what its like to have a day off,,,wondering what its like to go out on sat night and have a drink and stand in the rain lookin for a taxi ,,,sounds like heaven to me,,wondering why the irish for all there ole ole ole dont rise up and topple this government,wondering will obama send the troops in here and get rid o them ,,,{ at least in iraq they have hope for the future,}wondering will the next: customer: puke in my car and will i have the stomach this time to clean it up}wondering why my firsts year insurance was 3300 euro and why i had to get a 5 year loan for it,wondering why i paid 24 k for a new car for some sat night drunk to puke in it or stamp a burger into the carpet,wondering why the valueable resourses of the guards are wasted on moving taxis off congested streets ,wondering if maybe suicide is an option,,,,then all the bills would be paid and then ide have felt of some use to my family,wondering why the people are erupting cause there asked to take a10 % wage cut ,,and ive taken a 50% min wage cut and not a word said by anyone ,why people get on the internet and blabber hatred against anyone and everyone, there is surley better things to be doin wit ur time. life is too short .wondering will my wife continue to love me cause ive lost my sense of humour,wondering about the poor young people whos dreams have been shattered by the corperate greed ,,the people who bought a house for themselves at crazy prices ,got married ,,and dreamt of children and now find themselves turning off the heating and scared of tomorrow,,,wondering what happened to that young couple i had in my taxi 1 night who told me they where where worried about there jobs ,,,and very soon after i see in paper the place where they worked closed down.

please please please stop moaning about things and people you know nothing about ,,,if its not possible for you to think deeper on this or any other subject ,,then keep quiet ,,this is a great country full of wonderfull people who in the past had the ability to change the world,,,they went out and did something for themselves and others around them ,,including there greater community ,,,please try and be positive about others ,,,be friendly ,,,be nice ,,,be concerned,,,be helpfull,,,,
sitting there in the safety of your room, on your computer wit a bud in your hand givin out {and sorry for language } shighten ou o ye serves no purpose only than showing the world what a sad sad life you have .............................................................................................

jack

by silverbullet - none Tue Feb 03, 2009 18:37 baldielion at yahoo dot co dot uk

Re; the fred and other posters, there is is no ITDU, get your facts straight.

by Worker Tue Feb 03, 2009 19:02

yeah its the NTDU. but that changes nothing. Tommy Gorman of the NTDU regularly makes racist remarks about immigrant taxi drivers.

There are 25,000 taxi drivers in Dublin alone but only a couple of hundred turned out today. Todays demo was not representative of taxi drivers and neither is the NDTU which has less than 10% of taxidrivers as members.

by Daithi - none Sun Feb 08, 2009 22:08

I amazed at this attitude that suggests Taxi drivers are responsible for the past situation when there were not enough taxis. In those days there were 6,000 taxi licenses in Ireland. Your Government was responsible for that. The taxi drivers driving today were in other industries or indeed school. The age profile of a driver back then was 60yo and a license cost 90.000 punts. Just like the publican license your Government were afraid to tackle it. The problem with Ireland's taxi Industry is that there are no standards. Its too easy to get into unlike in the UK. In Ireland an hour after a driving test you can drive a Taxi. You could not legally sit beside a learner driver but you could drive up to eight people in a taxi. It take 3 years to become a black cab driver in the UK. In Ireland it takes ten minutes and and a Sat/Nav. Ireland has 7000 taxis per 1 million people the Uk has 1000 per 1 million. Of course its unfair to saturate a market simply because people have to wait a while during a 2 hour period on Saturday night.. These people have families too. As for this attitude, I have no sympathy for taxi drivers. When do they lose your sympathy the day after they lost their job in the factory and looked at the taxis industry. just seems unintelligent to me.