Pay rise Please.

Writing tickets,

Would anyone like to rent a crane? Please.

Down and out in Dublin


Well if you have never been to Dublin you could not understand the anxt of the taxi drivers.
A few years the licencing system was deregulated meaning that anyone who had the correct fee could buy a medallion or taxi plate.
You dont't even have to own a taxi driving licence.(PSV)
The price of the plate had been 80,000 punts.
Then under the new rules the price is e6,300.

The result is that there are more taxis in Dublin than New York.

The unions are happy, more members.
The taxi regulator is happy, loads of revenue.
The public is happy,they only have to point at a bird in the sky and 4 taxis stop.

At the airport there are around 4,000 taxis who took out permits at e400 each.
This generated around e1.6 million for the DAA.
Those cars have to compete for 30 spaces at the airport rank,150 spaces in the Kesh (holding area) plus a further250 in the overflow.
Thats around 430 spaces for 4,000 cars.

The queue sometimes overflows on to the motorway!

There are more taxis per head of population than anywhere in the world I think.

Now to add insult to injury.

There is an ad on the radio asking the public to contact the taxi regulator to tell her if they think taxi fares should be lower,or remain the same.
Did you local chemist or grocer ever ask you if you would prefer to pay more?

This exercise is a total waste of money.

The price we now charge was set when diesel was 60c now its e1.40 per litre.

Another problem is the number of taxi ranks is still much the same as when we had 2,600 taxis. Now its around 12,000 taxis trying to fit on to the same places.
The Garda see this as a revenue gathering exercise and they are giving out tickets by the book full, I got 2 lately.

Boo Hoo.

Just thought I would share that with you again.
When I took that first photo I did not know that the frustrated driver threw his licence at the Garda and had to be taken away in a police car.

Best not to loose the cool.

Look I will get my son to do a video a clip of taxi congestion in the city.

This week the conference on banning cluster bombs was held in the Croke Park conference centre.I brought a few big wigs there, one woman came out of Clearys department store and asked me to go to Ballsbridge. We were on O'Connell bridge when she remembered that she should be going to Croke Park instead.
How could she forget?
They did get some agreement but without the USA and China attending there will be nothing done.
I hope I am wrong though.
Another big concert at the weekend Celene Deyon and Boyzone.