I thank the Minister of State for her presence. I raised this issue with the Minister for Transport last night. I understand that at short notice he cannot be here, but I would be very much obliged if the Minister of State can convey the importance of this issue, which I know he is aware of. There is going to be industrial action by taxi drivers or as close as they can get to it today either outside at Merrion Square and at the airport on an issue they feel strongly about. I support them on this. I hate to see Dublin city disrupted. I hate to see people who are going about their work, trying to their travel and get home after a busy day disrupted in this way. It is a pity that it has had to escalate this quickly without them being met. The issue is a just issue. The National Transport Authority, NTA, reviews fares for taxis every two years roughly. Those fares are reviewed and a new fare is brought up relating to the type of car, the cost of the car and those kinds of issues. The NTA arrives at a figure and the taxi meter is recalibrated accordingly. The taxi drivers pay a fee for that. I welcome the apps we all have access to now, including Freenow and Uber, particularly in cities and urban areas. They provide security, a certain amount of predictability and certainty, identification for the drivers and security for vulnerable users and women, especially younger women passengers. They know who their driver is. There is a record kept of the journey. Freenow guesstimates a fare. A person orders a taxi. If he or she wants to go from Rathfarnham to Leinster House, Freenow offers them a guesstimate of how much that will cost, which is useful because passengers the know roughly how much it will cost. They also know that if there is congestion or something like that it is going to cost more than that. Uber wants to move to an accurate fee. If I order a taxi from Knocklyon to Croke Park, it will outline a fare and come what may, it wants me to pay that fare. It means that if the taxi is delayed in traffic or if there are some other circumstances that cause a delay, the taxi driver is not getting paid for that They want to dictate the fare and circumvent the existing agreement that has been arrived at between the NTA and taxi drivers. At the moment, Freenow has a taxi saver. If I order a taxi, I pay a €3 fee between the time of ordering and the time it takes for the taxi to come to my house. That into account the distance the taxi driver has to travel to arrive. I may cancel. There is time and fuel used. Through this app, the taxi driver gets €3 before the pick-up. However, now the customer can choose not to pay the €3 fee. They can choose a discount to discount the fare by that €3. This is not part of the deal that was negotiated between the NTA and taxi drivers. We can give out sometimes about the cost of them but we all know traditionally that a taxi fare is about time, distance and pick-up cost. What the taxi drivers are justifiably exercised about is that the new system was introduced, if it can be called a system, without the agreement of taxi drivers. It has caused widespread anger within the industry. Taxi drivers feel that is a kind of divide and rule approach. Under this model, Uber pays the lower of the metered fare or the company's preset fixed price. This means that if there are delays, diversions or traffic issues, the driver loses income even though the meter reflects the legally regulated fare. That is the bones of it.

Sentiment score: 0.01

The piece of the reply that the Minister of State did not reach states that the Minister for Transport issued a letter to the NTA on 19 November last asking it to clarify the regulatory position on the Uber fixed price fare for the information of taxi operators and public representatives alike. We await that clarification because the taxi drivers who have been in touch with me and with colleagues across the House and who have come to my clinics do not recognise the part of the reply which asserts that there is a maximum price that cannot be exceeded. Their interpretation of this is that if a price of €23 for a journey is sent through the app as a guesstimate, that is what the customer will pay, even if the journey is delayed or diverted, resulting in an increase in the fare. In other words, the taxi driver cannot claim that but the answer the Minister of State has given seems to suggest the opposite. However, it is only referring to Uber. It is not referring to Freenow, for example, another app that is very widely used. The NTA needs to move very quickly. Another part of the ministerial response states, with reference to the Uber taxi fixed price option, that the Minister understands that the customer is now provided with a maximum guaranteed price upfront. That seems to be the case with one of the apps and while obviously I am in favour of value for money for customers, taxi drivers also need to make a living. Customers are guaranteed a maximum price upfront, and that is fine, but as taxi drivers point out, it does not take into account delays in the journey or other issues. The Minister is very clear in his reply that neither he nor the NTA is a party to the commercial or contractual arrangements but it is impossible for a taxi driver in Dublin to avoid using the apps now. Otherwise, they will just disappear as taxi drivers, so perhaps the NTA needs to get involved in that. The big piece that is exercising taxi drivers is that this was not negotiated. This has been foisted on them. That is why they are going to be outside the gates at 4.30 p.m. and blocking Dublin Airport as well, creating a bit of a fuss to bring this to the attention of the public.

Sentiment score: 0.05