Political activist drives a taxi.

Apple ICloud = Big FAIL

2011-10-16T23:39:00.001+01:00

The first photo above is from an iphone4, the second is from an ipod 3rd generation, and 3rd and 4th photo are from an ipod 4th generation and all show different versions of the calaendar app in icloud, and all are using the same apple id and wifi network.Essentially they should all act in more or less the same way, in Apples ICloud guff, however you can see here that they all act very differently and certainly do not have a seamless integration across all devices.There is worse but I,m not going to bother with it, cos Apple do not give 2 shits about their customers.

Irish People being exported like computer chips.

2011-09-25T23:03:00.003+01:00

What a complete fxxxin disaster this country is in. The difference between now and the 70s 80s and even the 90s, is that there was hope and possibilities. Now even hope has gone. Degree holders is this country never had problems getting work. Now we have the situation where almost all future degree holders will emigrate.

My baby is in the UK working for almost 2 years now (and I am grateful to the UK for giving him that opportunity). I want him back here, his mother wants him back here, his brother wants him back here, his aunties and uncles want him back, (looking at his facebook page I suspect) his friends want him back here, and hopefully something will happen that he is offered a job and can come back here to live and work.

As a consulting structural engineer he will most likely be involved in international projects, and therefore will travel widely as part of his employment, but for some selfish reason Irish people unreasonably expect to live in Ireland. Now can you believe the audacity of them, wanting to live in the country of their birth, that's just downright selfish of them. If they were any good, they would emigrate and send home money so that the government can take it off us in taxes on food and clothes, and mortgages etc. That`s what the patriots of the past did, but that`s not good enough for them greedy selfish degree holders.

They want and expect to live in Ireland.

Well I have news for you all. You will be exported like a computer chip destined never to return to the land of your birth. All government policies are going to focus on paying off the banks and you will do your patriotic duty to work in a foreign land and send half your wages back home, so that the government can take the portion of it that you should feel morally obliged to pay off the banks, the banks that bailed out the busted banks, and maybe, just maybe, in about 5 generations, then we will be free, and if your still alive, then maybe, if you have saved enough money to live on, you can come back to the land of your birth.

1916 to 1932 was only sixteen years, to have a rising, a revolution and a civil war, that eventually brought freedom, this time with no fighting its going to take about fifty years.

Well not if I have anything to do with it. I intend to get this government to focus on creating a country where our young people are valued, and where entrepreneurs can do business and employ our people.

So sayanorra for now, we,ll be bringing you home soon. No one gets left behind.

John Fitzpatrick

Democracy official Ireland style

2010-12-13T00:27:00.004Z

Looking at the Big Story on RTE about Shane Ross and the Eircom shares price debacle where thousands of little people lost a lot of money in a state company that was sold off by the Irish government. This company was promoted by the government as an almost can,t lose share issue and encouraged the little people to buy these shares.

I could never figure out if it was pure incompetence, or if there was some other sinister reason for the Irish government selling off such a vital piece of infrastructure, but to those that have an understanding of telecommunications, it was regarded as treasonous to do this, and the amount of industry insiders that did not invest in it, should have told the government that selling this into the private sector would mean a huge telecommunications infrastructural deficit into the future, which has clearly been the outcome of the sale.

My prediction is that the state at some point will have to take over at least the hub of telecommunications, but that's for another day.

The reason for this post was that i remembered the way official Ireland uses, adapts and manipulates, the so called democratic process to suit itself.

Remember Lisbon one when the little people gave the wrong answer to their so called democratic leaders. the leaders were annoyed and decided to threaten the little people with all kinds of horrible things from their bigger European democrats. They even presented it as an opportunity to right the wrongs we had done by voting no in Lisbon one and so they gave us Lisbon 2, where we duly obliged these stalwarts of democracy.

Why I thought of this issue I can only try to explain in writing, I could probably explain it better speaking but writing is what I am using at this moment and therefore you will just have to suffer my rants to get to the point of this.

Shane Ross was attending the AGM of Eircom shareholders where thousands of little people had showed up to complain about the loss in shares value.

They were intent on letting the board know of their disgust and annoyance at the way the whole issue had been handled. There was clear shock and disillusion when they realised the board of directors which included luminaries and defenders of democracy such as Dick Spring (former leader of the Labour party, and former Tainaiste), and Ray McSharry a well known worldwide authority on democratic principles. Anyway the votes were cast, the little people had 23 million plus votes against the motion put forward by the board, however McSharry then said he had 1 billion, one hundred and 23 million proxy votes for the proposal. That,s it then, the democratic process was used and the little people would just have to accept the result, whether they liked it or not. And so the little people lost all their money, but official Ireland said they should be happy because they had availed of the wonderful democracy that Ireland provides them with, and they should be happy, poorer but happy democrats.

I wonder why official Ireland did not adopt the same attitude during the Lisbon referenda.

With all that's going on today though, I wonder if Angela Merkel has the guts to renegotiate Lisbon, because if she wants to scuttle Lisbon all she has to do is renegotiate it, and insist the Irish government puts it to a referendum and she will get a resounding NO.

Democracy is not efficient, especially when its operated by Official Ireland.

The European project is over.

2010-11-28T22:09:00.000Z

The European project is over.

In human terms normally the big brother protects the little brother. When the bully comes along the big brother is waiting for the bully and when he clarifies his little brother is being bullied, then he kicks the shit outta the bully. Result is little brother goes along about his business confident that when he needs help his brother will defend him.

What did Ireland get? We got the shit kicked out of us by the big brother, in this case Germany, though not alone, France is equally as guilty. They asked us to be good little Europeans and help them to get Lisbon agreed. We did as any good little brother would do, and helped the big brother, even though we suspected we would not get anything out of it, we were promised jobs, a better standard of public services, a better standard of living etc. What do we end up with, none of the above and guaranteed hardship probably for generations.

It may take another 800 years but we will eventually free ourselves into Irish sovereignty and Independence, and we will never be fooled again.

The only nations Ireland can truly trust is America and Australia, and when this is over, my efforts will be to align Ireland with those two big brothers, because we know they will not turn on us, in our hour of need.

They think today's actions will appease the markets, well the reality is they only convinced the markets that the Europeans can not be trusted, and those that are managing those funds will be much more conservative when making decisions to allocate funds and the last place they will place them will in European countries and companies. The Bundesbank can not hold out forever, sooner or later the Euro will collapse.

The European project is over, and the ordinary people can not be blamed for that. The blame lies solely at the feet of the people at the top, and they are all equally guilty. For evil to prosper good men need say nothing and many said nothing and the others told lies.

Germany has again divided Europe although I suspect they did not mean to do it this time, and they are about to learn a lesson about human trust. The Irish trusted the Germans and they kicked the shit out of us, and we will not forget it.

For the record Germany will say they gave us funds for many years, however they should now know that they should have listened when they were told, the ordinary people got nothing, while the money was squandered by Irish governments looking after there cronies, and if Germany wants to take that line, then they should take it up with their friends in the treacherous political party known as Fianna Fail.

While Ireland burned, Cowen and Lenihan fiddled with their friends in Berlin. Well Germany you can have them, cos we don,t want them.

ICTU protest march 27th November 2010

2010-11-26T22:05:00.003Z

For those who won,t go, or who think tomorrows protest march is a waste of time. Firstly I think the trade union leadership is almost as guilty as the government, for getting us into this mess. They might not have been guilty of actually doing anything, but in my book they are guilty by default, they should have known what was going on, enough of the most senior people were getting paid handsomely by the state boards and organisations, that to my mind justifies me feeling completely let down by them. I acted as a volunteer giving my time and paying my own expenses to participate in the partnership process to represent my community, while I received no support of any kind from ICTU as an organisation or its members that were on these boards. Little did I know that many of them were receiving payments for attendance at board meetings that was equal to and sometimes more than the community participants were getting as salaries.

That being said I still beleive that ordinary people should be organised and should be part of some such organisation be it a trade association, or works committee, but preferably as a trade union member. Trade union membership needs to be reformed just as much as the political system IMHO.

Thats my grump against the trade union leadership which brings me to this writing.

I will be marching tomorrow, but, not to support ICTU, but, because I am against the government decision. Personally I support defaulting and taking our chances, which will send a very different message to the markets, than the one the government is sending which is that if the bond holders push hard enough we will capitulate. Well the IMF should know that there is a growing swell of support for defaulting and political change, that will not go away, and we will grow stronger over time and eventually we will default. So Mr Chapra, bring that back to your bosses, the Irish will eventually decide not to pay the money back to you or the bondholders, and you can build that into your interest rates, I do not care, because my grandchildren are not going to be paying these debts under any circumstances.

Why should anybody support the protest? Well particularly those with mortgages should understand that if the banks were allowed to go bust (as I believe they should) then you would have no bank to pay your mortgage to. Yes they will try to sell the loan books etc, to other banks or anybody that is willing to buy them, but if the government does not allow them to buy the loan books then the loans will die, and voila you will own your home. I know this sounds a bit too simple, but in reality a bank closing down is no different to a local company going bust, some people lose out, others win, that's the limited company system for you. So now those with mortgages have a vested interest in seeing the banks go bust.

None of the establishment political or otherwise will thank me or support me for writing this, and I,m sure I will be criticised as irresponsible, but the facts are the facts, and there you have them. You decide what you want to do, I,m not urging you to act one way or the other. I will be accused of undermining the banking system and thus undermining the economy, well the fact is we are part of a currency (the Euro) that is not in any real trouble, and because we are not maintaining our own currency, what we really need is a banking service, and there are plenty of profitable European banks that can provide us with a banking service. I know lots of people have bank deposits that are their life savings however these could be guaranteed by the state up to lets say a maximum of 50,000 euro, and then the state could ensure these deposits are paid over lets say a period of a decade, and while this might inconvenience some people in the short term, the reality is they would not lose any money in the long term.

I am going to stop writing because nobody reads my blogs anyway and it won,t make any real difference what I think, but anyway I have written it and published it, and when the time comes to say I told you so, then I will be saying it.

So good luck to everybody on the march tomorrow, and hopefully it will not be a total waste of time and effort.

No tourists in Ireland

2010-04-22T21:54:00.003+01:00

The Irish government is quick to slap down people that are critical of the fiscal startegy they are employing. The usual line is to accuse critics of talking down the economy and of being unpatriotic (which is a highly insulting term to apply to an Irish person).

The government produce reports and statisitics by the forest load to out-criticise their critics, while the critics with little or no financial resources available to them have to rely on their own experience to form their opinions. It appears to me the government are putting more into reports to dismiss the critics, and the main reason for this is because they believe the reports, that are clearly wrong.

The 2 pictures here show Dame street on Sunday 18th of April 2009. Dame street is probably the most visited street in Ireland, with a substantial number of tourist attractions available for all tastes, from Dublin Castle, to pubs, restaurants, theaters, in fact every taste and age is catered for in Dame street. As you can see in the photos taken at 3.30 in the afternoon there is little or no people on the street.

What makes this particular Sunday afternoon is the skies have been closed for four days as a result of the Icelandic volcano. The streets of Dublin should be thronged with people, as the airport is closed, and the tourists should be at least on Dame street passing the time away.

So there is visual proof to anybody in the government that wants to see it, Dame street is devoid of tourists on a Sunday afternoon. The only conclusion I can come to is, there are no tourists in Dublin city at this time.

Sean McDermott street swimming pool.

2010-04-21T23:49:00.005+01:00

I really must get around to blogging more regularly.

Anyway today’s motivating factor is the Dublin City Council official’s decision to close 3 swimming pools in mainly poorer working class areas of Dublin. The areas are Coolock, Crumlin, and the North Inner city (Sean McDermott Street). My main concern is Sean McDermott street pool as the other 2 are part of commercial shopping centres that are destined for redevelopment anyway, and the Sean Mc Dermott street pool is a stand alone complex in what is probably one the poorest communities in Ireland. I must point out to readers that this community is extremely wealthy in terms of community spirit, although it is extremely poor in pure financial terms.

I am not going to make a long argument as to why a facility should be kept open using public funds because the benefits are blatantly obvious to those that want to see them. What does annoy me is the way the city officials are using public money to justify their actions, while the community side has no money available to it to allow them to make their case, so therefore I’ll try to help them.

The main arguments for closing these swimming pools are based on the fact that they are not making a profit. In regards to profits, the reality is sometimes the state can not make profits when supplying public services. The reality is if there were profits to be made, then the private sector would be providing these services and making profits, as the private sector normally does. It is clear to me that the city officials do not see these swimming pools as vital public services (in terms of facilitating poor people to learn how to swim at least), they see them as profit generators. I do not know when local authorities decided that vital public services had to make profits to justify there existence, in fact in mind if they can make profits from supplying vital public services then there should be no local authorities, and the private sector will supply us with all we need and want ( so long as we can afford it). So that’s my solution, close down the local authorities and leave everything to the private sector, voila, job done, problem solved.

Anyway back to today’s motivator. During the public debates the impression is given that we are talking about swimming pools, i.e. luxurious facilities available to poor people that rich people have to pay through the nose for. I decided to visit Sean McDermott street pool to take a couple of photos to show the reality of this run down, extremely badly maintained building to show what we are really talking about. We are talking about a stand alone facility, built in the 70s at a time when the local people had little or no sanitary or hygiene facilities available to them despite the fact the landlord was the state in the guise of Dublin Corporation. This building was really built so that people like me could get a proper shower, thats right to wash ourselves. In my case after I got married and had 2 children of my own, they too were brought to this swimming pool to get a wash, and that was up to 1986. It,s not centuries ago.

This area of Sean McDermott street has largely seen the demolition of the tenement houses that existed, and the people that lived there were scattered to various ends of the city and county. They were replaced with tenement houses, but now they are called apartments. They have lifts installed, and various other modern facilities like indoor toilets, and especially indoor bathrooms that allow you to wash yourself in your own home. Imagine that kind of novelty being available in the year 2010.

Now the city officials (and I use that term disparagingly) do not think they have to provide these poor people with washing facilities, (nobody will say that in public btw), so therefore the swimming pool can close on financial grounds.

The fact tens of thousands of children have learned to swim in this pool does not have any bearing on the decisions of the local authority. The fact is, this has to be borne in mind when coming to a decision whether to close this pool or to keep it open as a swimming pool (as opposed to a public showering facility). There is one simple fact that can not be denied about learning to swim, and its this, to learn to swim you need water in vast amounts, and the normal place for this water is called a swimming pool. De facto, nobody could argue with that, unless you want to say the children could go to the rivers or canals available in Dublin, but if you want to use that argument then I am not going to discuss it.

Anyway I hope my comments help to keep the swimming pools open, or at least I hope the Sean Mc Dermott Street pool stays open. While I wish the other 2 communities the best of luck with their pools, I suspect they will fall on the deaf ears of city officials that will say privately the private sector will build new facilities for them.

In case anybody thinks this is a luxurious facility available to poor people that only want a swimming pool provided for them on the cheap, below are a couple of photos of this luxurious swimming pool. see the photos at the top of this blog. For the record these photos were taken at about 3.30pm on a Sunday afternoon, and you can clearly see the pool is closed.

90 grand a year pensioners.

2010-02-21T23:43:00.004Z

Sometimes you have to put your opinions in writing and record them somewhere, which is mainly what I use my blog for. In this instance I have to put my opinion on the record before tomorrow night’s Frontline programme. Not that anybody at Frontline will pay any attention to what I think, but nevertheless I will record it here. There might be a time when I will be able to say I told you so.

Last Monday fifteenth of February 2010 the Frontline programme on RTE1 had a debate about the social welfare system in Ireland. In the main the contributors seemed to want to reduce and restrict social welfare payments. There was no real discussion about the cost of living in Ireland. For the record I believe that social welfare in Ireland should provide a reasonable standard of living for those that find themselves unemployed for whatever reason. A lot of those advocating reductions in the payments conveniently forget that Unemployment benefit is paid out as a result of an insurance policy paid through the PRSI contributions from your salary. Reducing the rates of payment from this scheme is IMHO illegal nevertheless it has not been legally challenged as unemployed people do not have any money and therefore can not afford to take court cases in Ireland.

On a relevant point but almost always treated separately by particularly right wing commentators are the costs of the public service as a whole. I include the cost of pensions in that figure because I regard everybody that receives money from the state to live on are all in the same position. You can call it social welfare or pension provision. Either way they are the same to me. They get money from the state to live on. I advocate as I’ve said a reasonable standard of living from the state for those lucky enough to have access to these payments. I must acknowledge here that the vast majority of public service pensions have very small payments, and there lifestyle in a lot of cases is equal to somebody totally reliant on a social welfare payment. On the other hand there are a small amount of people on what I regard as obscene levels of pension payments. They are the few thousand that reach the very top of the civil and public services and then qualify for pensions from the public purse.

Mainly these people go quietly into the background and very seldom comment in public on anything relevant to public affairs, however there is one man that seems to think it is obligatory for him to express his opinions in public. This man a Mr Ed Walsh is a former head of a university, with an annual pension of ninety thousand euro. Personally I do not care about the amount of pension Mr Walsh receives (as I cannot do anything about it either way), what does concern me though is that he somehow sees himself different to a social welfare recipient. Somewhere in his mind he seems to think it’s alright for him to get 90 grand a year while he continues to berate unemployed people for accepting a payment from the state. He does not seem to understand that he has more than nine times the rate of payment from the state that an unemployed person receives. All the while he seems to feel he is entitled to comment on reducing poor people’s payments while continuing to accept 90 grand a year.

IMHO Mr Walsh should eat some humble pie and remember that he is a more expensive burden on the state, than the unemployed people he advocates reducing standards of living for.

I know I will get some stick over this blog, but I’ll deal with that as it arises, however I hope that those in receipt of money from the state (no matter what the situation) who wish to comment in public about people reliant on social welfare, should remember that I see them as the same.

Blogging from a hospital bed.

2010-02-04T20:47:00.003Z

Blogging from a hospital bed.

November 2009 gave me a proper shock to my system. My mother died suddenly and sent the bejaysus out of the 8 of us. Anyway funeral came and went and she was given a good send off. I felt shite but put it down to the general atmosphere of feeling shite, at the time when you’re burying your mother.

I need to go back to the protest in O’Connell Street in October. I felt shite that day, but put it down to being freezing, in fact a good friend of mine Jimmy Donegan allowed me use his car for a couple of naps during the day.

During that day I met people that know me a long time and some that know me a short while, but either way none of them would be shy about passing a comment on my figure, and none did, therefore I got no inkling that my rounded figure needed to concern me.

I knew I was getting a bit fatter, but I put it down totally to the new lifestyle of having to stay in the car for far longer than it is healthy. Far more taxi operators vying for the passengers and rank spaces meant that the new reality was spending more time squashed into the driver’s seat of the car. As such I, like most other taxi drivers just accepted this as the new way of life, without giving any real thought as to the consequences. Gadgets like portable TVs, Ipod touch etc, mobile broadband, and various other ways to help pass the time were sought to relieve the boredom, but very little thought was given to the health consequences of sitting squashed into the driver’s seat of a car for 12 hours every day for 7 days a week. It’s obvious that one of the unhealthiest jobs out there today is driving a taxi, in Ireland.

This is for taxi drivers and most of you know what I’m talking about so I’m not going to type any more of that stuff. If you are not a taxi driver and want more explanations then you can email me and I’ll fill you in.

Back to November, the fallout after the protest, and the subsequent arguments that took place on the forum. I confided in a number of close friends about how I felt so bad that I could not participate to defend or attack one way or the other; however I was convinced that it was a combination of various things starting with my mother’s death, and then the rapidly deteriorating working conditions, Xmas on the way, money being scarce, new rules on the way, 9 year rule means I my car won’t qualify and I can’t afford to buy a new car, all the things that had every full time taxi driver concerned, and indeed all the things that concern full time taxi drivers as they attempt to keep themselves off the dole, if they are lucky enough to qualify for the dole, or as is the case for most of us, where we will not qualify for any kind of a payment because our partners / wives /husbands, are earning fairly low salaries.

That’s the general scenario set, I feel shite, but never put it down to a health issue. I know I’m going to get grief over this but so be it. Apart from the obvious skinny people, the people that are a bit overweight all have the basic same shape, plump chubby faces and bellies, with the trousers getting a bit tighter on the waist.

In my case all of the above, however it was also accompanied by harder to do physical work.

Anyway to cut a longer story short, I find myself in Blanchardstown hospital as a result of what I believed was a fluid retention issue, but in reality is a heart attack issue. As I write today at 11.30 am on 4/2/10 I have lost ten kilos as a result of fluid being removed from my body, and they are not finished yet. I’ll let you know about the final outcome regards weight loss.

The fluid issue is what really concerns me, it was confusing to be getting plumper and rounder, and waist size increases, all at the same time, but always thinking ahh, it,s just the result of another day at the wheel, and all the while thinking that tomorrow I,ll get a good days work, and that will work off the excess body materials, but the good days work never came, and on went more fluid. I also suspect the fluid issue is somewhat exasperated by the fact that we drive taxis and are subject to the cramped in working conditions we are subject to. Maybe we should all insist on passes for the Kesh, at least up there you can get out of your car at least for the duration of your queuing time.

So my advice to you all is, Do not ignore weight increases, loss of breath, harder to do physical tasks, no matter how small the differences might be. Go to your pharmacist; ask for advice from them, and any other free health advice that may be available. I know that paying for doctors and prescriptions is frightening, but as is in my case now, I have lost about 12 weeks work, and will probably lose more, in the long run.

So please examine your options on private health insurance, and income replacement insurance as an option. I know the money is hard to find but I honestly think that you should somehow find a way to at least get minimum cover. It is fully tax allowable, I know that’s no real help but I just had to say it.

Back to today 4/2/10 from the cardiology ward in Blanchardstown hospital. I am motivated enough to try to help all vocational taxi operators. The attack from the commission for taxi regulation, and the Irish Government continues on a very vulnerable group of key workers providing the public with a high quality service, at minimal costs.

For my part I am back in the fight and I hope I can play my part in improving our lot. I know I won’t agree with everyone and they won’t agree with me, but believe me, in my humble opinion, as an unfunded, clearly honest and upfront raggle taggle group of desperadoes, we have achieved much, despite the levels of opposition we have faced, and I was honoured to serve with you in the past, and I will be honoured to serve with you in the future.

The fight goes on, even from the hospital bed, however I expect to be released in a few days, and then the fight goes back on to the streets, the ranks, the kesh, the radio companies, the rental companies, the dept of Transport, might even get another trip to Trim.

Health services for the little people.

2010-01-04T14:44:00.002Z

Firstly let me say I wish Brian Lenihan all the best and I genuinely hope he makes a full recovery. Listening to the interview he certainly displayed strength of character that is extraordinary, under the circumstances. http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0104/lenihanb_av.html?2676347,null,209

On the other hand I feel that he and his Fianna Fail colleagues have no idea as to what is happening in the real world of the Public health services.

For the last 3 weeks I have been nursing an illness that has knocked me out like I’ve never experienced before. The reality is that I should go to a doctor, but in reality I also know that my GP will refer me to a hospital, and I will be subject to the public system as I cannot afford private health insurance.

My philosophy is that I will go into a public hospital in the back of an ambulance, when I am so ill that I won`t be able to do anything about it.

I don`t suspect my illness is anything as serious as Mr Lenihans (and hopefully I`m right in that), but nevertheless to me, it is as serious, as I can`t work, and therefore worrying about money as well as your health only adds to the stress levels.

I have experience working for the public and private health services and the quality and level of services that are received vary greatly. As such I have a huge fear of going into the public health services and ending up as a statistic like the late Suzy Long.

In the public service you have to be very lucky to get adequate treatment for your illness, and it appears to me that it depends on who is treating you, where you’re being treated, and Dublin does not guarantee that you get proper treatment.

I know people will say go to the hospital, go to the doctor etc, but the fact is I am terrified of the public system, however, if I had private health insurance I would not hesitate to use the private service. In itself that statement should verify my genuine commitment that I am right.

So I hope Mr Lenihan might take a look at the public health services from a different perspective and convince his cabinet colleagues that we need a radical overhaul of the health service.

I’m now listening to Joe Duffy on Liveline RTE radio 1, and the amount of people wishing Mr Lenihan well is amazing, and I would not expect anything else from a normally sympathetic Irish public. However I can’t help thinking about all the other public health issues that have been aired on Liveline over the years, and somehow I feel that now the Finance minister is diagnosed with a serious illness, that somehow Joe Duffy will overlook the faults in the system.

Hopefully we have time to fix the system before I need to avail of it.

We need a complete political overhaul.

2009-12-29T20:04:00.003Z

For the past thirty years I have heard various shades of Irish politicians make various arguments to justify an increase in the pay of politicians. The one consistent point made was / is “to attract the best highly skilled, best educated, best experienced people, to come forward as potential elected representatives” then we needed to maintain the highest salaries available to politicians and public servants.

Now thirty years later I see the best that were attracted to these jobs made the biggest mess of a country that could not envisaged by anybody in the western world. That also tells me that these people have been grossly overpaid for the past thirty years.

Now I see the very top of the Government attack their colleagues at the bottom of the ladder. They are prepared to take money off the cleaners in the civil and public services while, virtually leaving the people at the top (essentially the people that are directly responsible for the mess) are left relatively unscathed with their standards of living virtually completely intact.

It,s business as usual for the senior civil and public servants, the top politicians and ministers, while the people in the middle and lower salary scales (in both the public and private sectors) are experiencing a reduction in living standards that Ireland has never seen before.

The stark reality is that the top politicians in Ireland do not need any qualifications other than a PhD in cute whorism, that would allow them to manipulate the various voting factions in constituency organisations that make up the Fianna Fail party.

That's it, simple really, manipulate yourself into a position that requires the constituency members to vote for you, and voila, you are made up for life. Even those that are not close to the leaders get the handsomest terms and conditions of employment, anywhere across the democratic world.

Somehow I don,t think anybody that has or would promote democracy as a means to Govern their nation, would ever envisage that incompetence might be a prerequisite before applying for an elected position of any kind.

In Ireland's case I believe the signatories to the proclamation of Independence would almost expect the job to be done as a patriotic duty, and certainly money would never have been a motivator for any of the politicians that took part in the eventual Independence of the Republic of Ireland.

How things have changed in such a few short decades?

We have a situation now, where, the top politicians rule Ireland for their own and their friends behalf, using their legislative powers to hold down the cannon fodder, using exactly the same arguments that were used in the 1916 uprising, i.e. it,s for the good of the majority. The last time that happened we had to have a revolution to overthrow the tyrants in power, hopefully we can overthrow these people using the peoples power of the democratic process known as a vote in a general election.

After the next election Ireland needs a complete overhaul of the political system.

Ireland a broken people have stopped fighting back against forces of oppression.

2009-12-15T21:43:00.003Z

Below is an extract from an article that is related to the USA. However the similarities to Ireland are undeniable. Please read the extract before you read the full article.

Here,s the full article; http://www.alternet.org/story/144529/are_americans_a_broken_people_why_we've_stopped_fighting_back_against_the_forces_of_oppression?page=entire

A psychologist asks: Have consumerism, suburbanization and a malevolent corporate-government partnership so beaten us down that we no longer have the will to save ourselves?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Has such a demoralization happened in the US ?

Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged US population?

Can anything be done to turn this around?

Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?

Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.

Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?

No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.

Samuel Beckett Bridge (AKA Macken Street Bridge)

2009-12-01T21:58:00.002Z

I can,t get this all on twitter so I have to put it here, and then post a link on twitter, in the hope that a journalist might pick it up.

http://player.nos.nl/index.php/media/play/tcmid/tcm:5-511715/

The Samuel Beckett bridge also known as the Macken street bridge, is shown in this video from the dutch manufacturers clearly shows the bridge in line with Macken street at 32 seconds. This implies to me the bridge is now situated in the wrong position, i.e. it,s in line with Guild Street, not Macken Street.

I personally like public money spent wisely, and in this case I believe it is being wasted, and will only serve people heading North to South, which will do absolutely nothing to ease the traffic jams in Pearse Street.

Official Irish hypocrisy.

2009-11-24T16:51:00.003Z

Below is a block of apartments in Dublin, where residents live with the state as their landlord. As you can see, many of the units are boarded up and these units do not make for good neighbours. The rent in this complex can be as high as €200 per week depending on your income.

The residents were promised regneration of the blocks, but the governments partner a private builder pulled out of the deal and has left the residents high and dry.

In contrast the second photo shows a brand new building housing the courthouses where barristers, solicitors, and judges will carry out their work processing ordinary citizens through the legal quagmire that is the Irish judicial system.

The lawyers will all go home from their work and leave this wonderful building empty at night, while the residents around the corner have to live and rear their children in the conditions you see, in the photo.

I can,t help womdering how the Irish state could get the €120 million courthouse so perfect, while the same state, completely mismanaged the redevelopment of the buildings that ordinary people have to live in.

It is a great example of Official Irish hypocrisy on display.

Macken street bridge.

2009-11-09T22:22:00.004Z

This is one of my I told you moments.

My Da had trucks and the yard was in Pearse Street, Erne Place to be precise. In the 60 and 70s they were parked all over the surrounding streets, Erne Street, Pearse House, Lime Street, Hanover Street East, Cardiff Lane etc. Another business had it,s premises in Cardiff Lane, but that was called M J Fitzpatrick, either way there was a lot of trucks parked around the area.

Anyway the biggest complaint the drivers had was that they had to drive up Pearse Street to get to the northside of the city, i.e. the docks. The main issue they had was that a bridge from Macken Street to the docks on the northside would improve efficiencies to a great extent.

Well now 40 years later the Macken street bridge is now in place and will open to public use shortly. The new bridge is called Samuel Beckett bridge, but it is still referred to unofficially as the Macken Street bridge.

I have news for anybody that thinks this bridge is going to be efficient. The bridge is about 200 hundred meters from Macken Street on the southside, which means you will cross the bridge, stop at traffic lights, then turn left, drive 200 hundred meters, most likely experience another set of unco-ordinated traffic lights, and then turn right, into Macken Street.

I can,t understand why they could not put the bridge in line with Macken Street.

I have photos and video, and will post them later on this post.

Unification of the Irish people

2009-11-07T21:44:00.004Z

My country Ireland is in a very divisive position. The private sector clearly resents the public sector, and the public sector is clearly reeling at the governments attack on them. Worker against worker, like the civil war again.

As I see it, unfortunately, the trade union leadership is seen as operating a protectionist policy for public servants, while they expect the private sector to happily pay the costs of public services, through increased income taxes.

The trade union leadership has lost all credibility with all sides, but particularly with the private sector. The reason for this is that most of the items under various partnership agreements were never fulfilled, in particular the requirement for the provision of local authority housing, (IMHO) was the worst nail in the coffin that was the Celtic Tiger. Again IMHO if that local authority housing had been built, the cost of living would not have increased at such a rate, that we eventually ran out of the ability for companies to compete.

The facts are that a lot of people like me that left school with little or no formal education in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and most likely even into the 90s, were employed in low skilled manufacturing and service provider businesses, that eventually not compete with companies in countries with much lower house prices than Ireland.

The fact is that home prices affects the cost of everything. Everybody that provides a service or manufactures something, has to live somewhere. and ultimately the cost of that home, whether it,s a mortgage or rent, has to be met from that persons salary. Thus, if a private house value increases and I am renting the house next door, then eventually my landlord insists that I pay more rent. I then ask my boss for a wage increase, and I get it, but then eventually over time, eventually the customers won,t pay the price my company is charging for services or products, and then the company is bust, and nobody has any jobs in that company.

For the record I want to state that it is not cheap to rent a local authority home, and in most cases where people are working, it would be long term cheaper to buy a house, (if you could get a mortgage), than it is to rent local authority housing over a sustained long period of years.

E.G. in 1987 I was paying £57.50p to rent a flat in a Dublin Corporation housing estate called Balllymun, while a mortgage to buy a house over twenty years would have cost me about £40 per week. At the same time my father was dying, and eventually my father died, and left my mother in her home in Ringsend, with 1 adult child, (2 of us were married and moved out) and 5 schoolgoing children, and a rent bill every week. In fairness when my Da died, my mother paid a reduced rent, but when my brothers and sisters grew up and got jobs, the rent bill was enormous, and me ma paid much more to rent than she would to buy the house, because she could not get a mortgage. My mother and now my adult sister that lives in the house, has paid about €350,000 for a house that cost the government about £10,000, to build. any maintenance that was required to the house was paid by me ma, or me da, and now by my sister, and now it is highly unlikely that she will ever be able to buy that house, even if she could get a mortgage. So assuming my sister lives for another 40 years, she will have paid another €500,000 to rent the house, and she will still not own it. The Irish government will still be the beneficial owners of the house, so on their balance sheet they will own a house that cost my family about 1 million euros in rent, on an investment of 10k in 1979. That's a good return in my world.

Just needed to explain that part, hope my ma and sister does not get the hump, over discussing their private business in public.

Anyway back to the point of this blog entry.

I believe that Ireland is lacking serious leadership in terms of leading the crisis, the Irish people are facing. It appears there is only one person with a high enough public profile that can unite this country. I am not saying the poor should not resent the rich or vice versa, because I believe Ireland has a unique position that the better paid workers do not see themselves as any different to normal paid workers, they still see themselves as workers, and the fact is they are.

In reality we live in a classless society where rich and poor go for a few pints together on match days. Granted there are the D4 and possibly ultra right and ultra rich that would never frequent the local pub, no matter where they live, and it would appear they are wielding a very disproportionate amount of influence over the government, again IMHO.

Eamon Gilmore, the leader of the Labour party seems to be the person that could unite Ireland in the crisis we are facing. For the record let me say that the only way we can get out of this crisis is by working together and facing down the enemy, and if that happens to be the ultra right, or ultra rich, then so be it, we,ll face them down also. The reality is that investors are investors, and if they think they can get a better return in Ireland than elsewhere, they will invest. The Irish ultra right and ultra rich are still hanging on to a class war that is more appropriate to the Commonwealth, than a sovereign country that fought for 800 years to free itself of colonial powers, and ultimately fought to become a significant player in what is probably the most ambitious European unification project in the history of the world.

Eamon Gilmore should embark on a series of public protests, firstly to unite Irish workers on all sides. The reason for this is to allow people to protest in an an orderly fashion, that will achieve something for the public and private sector. If that something is only to facilitate the anger that people feel and want to express, then let them do it, sometimes that's enough to release the anger. and ultimately lets people feel they are fighting back.

In my own case a small number of taxi drivers protested and closed down O'Connell Street (the most significant peoples power street in Ireland). We achieved a small amount of progress in reality, but the main thing we got was a sense of unification, and our self esteem was restored.

Most of us went home, we knew we had not achieved much, but we had restored our sense of pride, that we as Irish people would not take the guff the establishment is imposing on us. Our Irish sense of rebellion was rekindled, and eventually we went home, and as I said we achieved very little in our own cause, but, we went home proud, that we had taken on the establishment, and they buckled. The minister for transport eventually met us, even though he tried to ignore us, well he could not ignore, and as such we won.

At this point I have to name a man called Frank Byrne that ended up with the job of acting as our leader, and did a good job under extremely difficult circumstances, although tempers frayed very close to the edge, and ultimately between him and few others, the Gardai and us got on very well. They had a job to do, we had a job to do. Both groups did their jobs, and hopefully the city centre traders did not suffer unduly, but I suspect they too were happy that somebody was fighting back.

That's what Irish people want, and the only person that can do that type of unification, at this point in history, is Eamon Gilmore.

So Mr Gilmore, please recognise, your time is now, go for it. Do what is right for the people of Ireland, irregardless of your personal friendships, with the trades union leadership.

He then needs to pursue government policies that will get the unemployed, back to work, to facilitate entrepreneurs to create new jobs, and ultimately increase inward investment of skills and finance, (and as I understand it, by arresting the bankers would send a message out to the honest corporate world that Ireland incorporated is open for business and is not a banana republic where you have to bribe politicians).

Gilmore is in the same position as Michael Collins, and those opportunities do not come around very often.

Mr Gilmore you need to recognise that your point in history to make a serious change is here, and now you must take it. Good luck, I,m behind you all the way.

What Ireland of 2009 is leadership and I believe that Gilmore is the man that time has decided on. Over to you Mr Gilmore, your actions will decide what happens from now on.

Maybe a help to some taxi drivers.

2009-10-30T23:08:00.001Z

I meant to make this public a long time ago, but I forgot, mainly because I was busy trying harder.

Anyway the reason I went down this road was to actually get refused an increase in fares so that when my day in court comes I can show to the judge that I tried to get more money to make my business profitable, but the tools of the state refused to recognise my position and said no.

Therefore one can only conclude that taxi operators can be forced by the state to run unprofitable businesses. Now thats a bigger argument, that I,m not getting into. Barristers will most likely make and break careers on that issue, and I,m sure they are better qualified than me to debate the legal wrongs and rights of that issue.

Anyway I beleive that this is evidence that judge would have to take into account if they were presented with it, in relation to somebody who is in arrears with loans and mortgages etc.

Over the last few weeks I,ve been listening to stories about maxed out credit cards, credit union loans in arrears, car loans in arrears (one guy told me he parks his car at his friends house 4 miles away, so that the repo man can,t find it), the ingenuity in avoiding the issues are great, but the fact is they have to be faced up to.

I beleive that this information in the hands of a solicitor could be used as a means to show the state has played a serious part in the debts you now find yourself in.

The main reason I did this was to avoid a situation where the CTR could say they were never asked for a fare increase,so now they were asked.

I,m not getting into any debates as to whether my opinion is right or wrong on this issue, it,s my opinion and thats all it is, it has no legal standing anywhere in the world except maybe in Karachi, where I might be able to convince them that I am a barrister, but I doubt it, the judges over there would see through me very easily I,m sure. If you want to use it in your defence then by all means do so. If you want the originals then email me and I will send them to you.

After all it,s just a thought.

The email communications are as follows.

Taxi fare increase.

Email number 1.

John Fitzpatrick to commission

show details Jun 12

199 Killala Road,

Cabra,

Dublin7.

Ms Kathleen Doyle

Office of the Commission for taxi regulation

35 Fitzwilliam Square,

Dublin 2.

Dear Ms Doyle

As a result of the commissions position of constantly issuing new taxi licences and the resulting increased numbers of competitors for a falling number of passengers, my business is no longer commercially viable at the current maximum allowable fare.

My business has incurred severe cost increases as a result of higher fuel costs, vehicle maintenance, despatch operator fee,s increased, and also a 50% reduction in the number of passengers available to me, which has resulted in my sales being reduced by 50%, despite my working hours increasing by 100% to about 80 hours per week. The amount of hours I have to work, is seriously adversely affecting my personal health, my home life with my children, and my marriage.

I can no longer absorb the increased financial costs from the reduced sales income and my business is operating at a financial loss, It is with great regret that I therefore request the commission to allow me to increase my maximum allowable fare by 200%.

This increase will allow me to return my business to financial viability and also to reduce my working week to a not unreasonable forty hours per week.

I need this fare increase immediately as I do not have any financial reserves left to support the business and my wife is now refusing support me from her salary.

I look forward to a speedy and favourable response.

Yours sincerely

John Fitzpatrick Taxi licence number 22377

Reply number 2

Commission@taxiregulator.ie to me

show details Jun 15

Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick,

Thank you for your contact with the Commission.

The new National Maximum Taxi Fare was set with due consideration of the need to provide value to passengers while promoting usage on the one hand and the operational and running costs of providing the service on the other. The changes therefore reflect the increased costs of owning and operating a taxi since the National Maximum Taxi Fare was implemented in September 2006.

In making its decision the Commission took into account the views of those that made submissions during the public consultation period, industry representatives, the Advisory Council to the Commission and other key stakeholders. Economic consultants also undertook a review of the costs of operating in the business and these results were also given due weight.

Please note that an individual found to be charging more than the National Maximum Taxi Fare is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €5,000.

Kind regards

Sonia McIntyre
Office of the Commissioner
Commission for Taxi Regulation

35 Fitzwilliam Square

Dublin 2, Ireland

Reply number 3

John Fitzpatrick to commission

show details Jun 15

I would appreciate if the commission could answer my request for a 200% fare increase with a Yes, a No, or even a Maybe, with a proper explanation for the commissions decision, or most preferably, with a date when I can apply the new fares.

I do not need any reminders about what is legal and what is not legal, if I have any need for clarifications on legal issues I shall ask for them.

For the purpose of this communkcation I would appreciate if you would adhere to the relevant matter raised..

Kind regards

John Fitzpatrick

- Show quoted text -

Reply number 4

Commission@taxiregulator.ie to me

show details Jun 18

Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick,

The national maximum taxi fare is the maximum fare that can be charged therefore you cannot charge an amount (200% or otherwise) exceeding that on the meter.

As previously stated any individual found to be charging more than the National Maximum Taxi Fare is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding €5,000.

Kind regards

Sonia McIntyre

Office of the Commissioner

Commission for Taxi Regulation

35 Fitzwilliam Square

Dublin 2, Ireland

_____________________________________________

WEBSITE www.taxiregulator.ie

P Please consider the environment before printing this mail

From: John Fitzpatrick [dublintaxies@gmail.com]

Sent: 15 June 2009 18:05

To: Commission@taxiregulator.ie

Subject: Re: FW: Taxi fare increase.

- Show quoted text -

Reply number 5

John Fitzpatrick to commission

show details Jun 22

Dear Ms McIntyre

I hope you can appreiciate my being confused and therefore seeking clarification. I originally reqiested the commission to grant me a fare increase. I expect a formal response to this request from the commission. If you have the authority to speak for the commission, I would like you to explain how you have that authority in writing and I would also like a full explanation for the commissions decision along with the appropriate authority granting or refusing my request.

Let me say this again, I do not need any reminders (from you or anybody else) of what I can legally charge, I would have thought my original request would demonstrate that I fully understand exactly the legal position of the maximum allowable fares.

Let me explain why I want a precise response from the appropriate authority level in the commission. I object totally having to resort to providing this level of information to people with no official authority to have this information. The commission or its staff, has no legal or moral right to know what my personal financial situation is, but it appears to get through the barriers the commission employs to distance itself from the day to day problems from those it regulates, I feel I have to expose to you my real financial position.

I am in serious arrears to everyone I,ve borrowed off and as such, I will have to display every effort to try to address those arrears when I go before a court. As such my solicitor has instructed me to request a fare increase from the commission. I have exhausted every other avenue to increase my sales income and it has all failed. I personally believe this request will also fail, but at least I will be able to demonstrate to a judge that I have tried to address my situation, and this in turn will show, that the state, by not acknowledging my situation, is stopping me earning an income that would allow me to pay my bills.

Yours in the kindest regards

John Fitzpatrick.

Reply number 6

Darren Lynch to me

show details Jun 24

Dear Mr. Fitzpatrick,

As you are aware, public hire vehicles (‘taxis’) are subject to a maximum fare requirement and have been for many years. The Commission for Taxi Regulation is conferred with the power to make a maximum fares order fixing the maximum fares in respect of any taximeter area, subject to an obligation to consult with the Advisory Council to the Commission and the Legal Metrology Service, by Section 42 of the Taxi Regulation Act, 2003. As my colleague has pointed out, the Commission engages in an extensive consultation process with the industry and other relevant interest groups before amendments to the existing maximum fare structure are made. In setting the maximum fare, the Commission is anxious to strike the balance between ensuring drivers have sufficient reward for their work and the need to ensure the service remains affordable and demand is sustained.

The maximum fare is applied to all taxi drivers nationally to ensure consistency in how consumers are charged. In order to ensure such consistency and effectiveness, exemptions to the national maximum fare cannot be provided to individual operators. You might note that private hire vehicles, such as hackneys, are not subject to the maximum fares order. The fare for a hackney service is agreed between the operator and the customer in advance of the journey. However, private hire vehicles are not allowed to stand or ply for hire.

Yours sincerely,

Darren Lynch
Legal Department
Commission for Taxi Regulation

35 Fitzwilliam Square

Dublin 2, Ireland

TEL +353 1 659 3800 | FAX +353 1 659 3801
EMAIL: darren.lynch@taxiregulator.ie

So thats it as it stands with the typos and all. I asked they refused. I hope this may help somebody and hopefully we all get some sense of fairness in the future.

BTW to anybody that might be in trouble with the Credit Union please go in to them, tell them things are bad and try to sort out an arrangement with them. They understand we are suffering bad times. They will work out an arrangement with you. At the end of the day, it,s most likely the Credit Union will be the only financial institution that may talk to you in the future. There is no point in burning your bridges with the Credit Unions, they may turn out to be your only friend, when things get, (I was going to say really bad), but to be honest I don,t think they can get any worse.

So good luck to you all, and stay safe.

More Official hypocrisy.

2009-10-30T20:51:00.001Z

Below is an extract from the new Road Traffic Bill 2009. It appears to me that qualified drivers of motorbikes, cars and vans are excluded as these categories are not included in the definition. Would anybody else be of the same mind?

Its nice to see that taxi drivers are so uppermost in Mr Dempseys mind that we qualify for our own section. Isn,t that nice of him and his officials to think of us and on such an important issue. Maybe thats what they meant when they told us to be careful what you ask for, you might not like what you get. But I think it,s nice.

BTW the full document from the Irishtimes in PDF format is here; This section is on page 8.

http://www.irishtimes.com/focus/2009/roadtrafficbill/index.pdf

Extract below;

“specified person” means a person who at the time of an alleged offence under section 4 in respect of driving or attempting to drive or section 5 in respect of being in charge of, a mechanically propelled vehicle

(a) is the holder of a learner permit, (b) holds his or her first driving licence, for a period not

exceeding 2 years from its date of issue,

is the holder of a driving licence licensing the holder to drive a vehicle in the category D, D1, EB, EC, EC1, ED, ED1 and W while driving, attempting to drive or being in charge of such a vehicle,

is the holder of a licence to drive a small public service vehicle granted under section 34 of the Taxi Regulation Act 2003 or section 82 of the Principal Act while driving, 40 attempting to drive or being in charge of such a vehicle when the vehicle is being hired or plying for hire,

PART 2

does not hold, at the time or,at any time within the period of 5 years prior to the commission, of the alleged offence a driving licence for the time being having effect and licensing the person to drive a vehicle of the category concerned, or

is deemed under section 7 to be a specified person.

Where a person holds a driving licence referred to in para- graph (c) or (d) of the definition of “specified person” in subsection (1) it is presumed, until the contrary is shown, that the person was driving at the time of the alleged offence a vehicle of the category concerned or a small public service vehicle being hired or plied for hire, as the case may be.
Extract ends.

Separate but related topic below.

While I am on this subject I wonder how many people know that since May 2009 it is an offence to not have all children belted into your car.

I wrote about this May 2008 here;

http://officialirelandgaffes.blogspot.com/2008/07/only-people-carriers-will-do.html

This is the Road Safety Authority webpage with the relevant information.

http://www.rsa.ie/childsafetyincars/procontent/FAQs/FAQs/Navigation.html

This is the extract from the page;

What do I do if I have more children in the rear of a car than there are seatbelts installed?
Ireland has availed of an exemption until May 2009 which allows children to sit unrestrained in the rear of a vehicle where seatbelts are not available. This concession, used responsibly, is intended to facilitate families with cars where the number of children is greater than the seats available for them.

The RSA is going around beating their chests like wardrums on the basis they got Mr Dempsey to agree the new bill, but it seems to me that they need to look at other things also. Informing parents that they need new multi seater vehicles if they are transporting more than 3 children might be a good place to start. If this rule was enforced then it could save the motor industry as all the saloon cars would have to changed into multi seat vehicles.

Seattle 1999 to Ireland 2009.

2009-10-15T22:09:00.002+01:00

I found this on the internet, I,m not sure of the origins etc, and I,m reproducing it here, only becuase it almost mirrors the situation in Ireland today, that existed in Seattle in 1999.

Here,s the story:

One of the lesser known acts of civil disobedience during the days of the Seattle WTO meetings was a strike by the local taxi drivers; a small but effective component in making the city inhospitable to our unwelcome guests. The call was made for all taxi drivers to suspend service within Seattle city limits from 6.00 am to 6.00 pm on Tuesday 30 November 1999.

In some parts of the world, taxi driving is a respectable profession which earns a decent income, by local standards, and which has no negative stigma. The cab drivers I’ve talked to in Europe, Asia, and North Africa claim to do pretty well and identify with the middle class.

This is not the case in the United States, where taxi driving is one of the lowest rungs on the social hierarchy. Taxi drivers in urban areas are overwhelmingly poor immigrants, rural taxi drivers are frequently among the poorest and most marginalized of whites. Seattle’s two biggest taxi fleets are primarily owned and operated by East African men from Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea. Another large company is almost entirely Punjabi Sikhs and other North Indians, and another is the last holdout of the working-class Anglo drivers. Drivers lease cars for 12-hour shifts from taxi owners. Most lease the car on a weekly basis, working seven 12-hour shifts per week.

We are therefore self-employed, and lacking unions, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, medical insurance, and any official channel for dealing with exploitation by the companies, which deal with the allocation of cars, collection of lease money, dispatch, and
general administration. Cab owners pay dues to the company to support this infrastructure; since there is no oversight, the companies are dens of nepotism and incompetence.

Additional troubles began in the industry when the city government decided to apply a ‘zero tolerance’ model to the local taxi industry with an ordinance passed in 1997. In one of the many spurious attempts to make Seattle a ‘world class’ city, perhaps in anticipation of the already scheduled WTO meetings, the taxi industry was targeted for reform.

Laws were enacted regulating everything imaginable, beginning an era of English language tests, uniforms, enforced cleanliness, consolidation of cab companies, illegalization of independent owner-operators, inspections, and a punitive system for offenders. Curiously absent from these laws was assurance of quality of life, job security, safety, or reliability of income for the taxi drivers – indicating the local government’s dominant concern for the superficial experience of tourists and conventioneers over the working conditions of its constituents.

Drivers reacted by forming an organization called the Cab Drivers’ Alliance of King County. This organization has had limited success in challenging the power structure, mostly stymied by the individualist nature of taxi drivers and the implacable nature of politicians. At the very least we have made a career of harassing City Hall, once encircling the building with honking cabs in a four hour wildcat strike, then cruising through downtown as a rolling roadblock.

If this doesn’t sound familiar, it should. People from the global South working too hard for too little. Working-class whites pitted against immigrants. Sweatshop hours. A system which caters to the comforts of the wealthy. A popular resistance that gains little ground against a ‘business-friendly’ government.

It is like a script in miniature of capitalism’s latest fad, neoliberalism. For obvious reasons, it wasn’t difficult to call for a strike. The difficulty was largely one of information dispersal. Flyers posted at the cab lot were torn down immediately, flyers posted 50 yards from the lot were removed within 24 hours.

Management did its best to discredit the strike, claiming it to be a fiction to the media. Other management declined comment or made ambiguous statements. At the Anglo company, the management made it clear to me that I was not physically safe to organize or post flyers at their lot. I spent a few nights creeping around all the lots at 3.00 am, posting flyers under windshield wipers. It is strange that so little has changed in the US – that labour organizing can still get you shot or blacklisted.

Perhaps the most difficult task was to convince the drivers that NOVEMBER 30TH was the right time for a strike. Most were counting on making heaps of money from the delegates, and were hesitant to give up one of the most lucrative days of the year. A large article was published in our newsletter, detailing the reasons we should act on this day for our own individual interests and for global reasons. Many of the African and Indian drivers were familiar with the WTO, World Bank, and IMF because of the activities of those institutions in their home countries.

Eventually most drivers warmed to the idea because of the rare chance to get even with the city government – by denying taxi service when it would hurt the most.

Just four days in advance, the strike was announced to the media. It was kept secret until the last minute to prevent the companies from coming up with counterpropaganda, or the municipality to avoid the crisis by arranging other transportation. Response from the media was immediate and somewhat overwhelming for our small strike committee. News outlets were desperate for more WTO stories, and I suspect they were also interested because of the dynamic and unpredictable nature of our ‘union’, lacking careerists and the usual crusty old order of lefties to water down our anger.

The events on NOVEMBER 30TH are now pretty historic, and there were certainly a lot more exciting things happening then a dearth of cabs. Busy with other actions that day, I felt happy to know that the delegates couldn’t use cabs to get through crowds, and were more easy to spot and harass in their limousines, and that no taxis were being shaken or blockaded, which could have shifted some taxi drivers’ sympathies.

Our strike significantly aided in shutting down the city since the bus service was also suspended, and people definitely wouldn’t drive into the city after it became clear that the demonstrations had claimed the streets. There was simply no way for people to get to their jobs in the city centre. This, combined with the masses of people who voluntarily chose not to work on OVEMBER 30TH, suspended any atmosphere of normalcy. The transportation shutdown enabled a situation of de facto general strike.

Grey Filastine drives a taxi as infrequently as possible, but if you are in Seattle try hailing Yellow 509. The rest of his time is spent in various hustles, producing music, or making political trouble.
Resources: » Information about Grey’s other musical and direct action projects:
www.postworldindustries.org 213

NAMA the greatest lie ever told to the Irish people.

2009-10-14T23:19:00.001+01:00

NAMA THE BIGGEST LIE FIANNA FAIL HAS EVER TOLD.

The main reason Fianna Fail has given for bailing out the banks is that the integrity of the Irish banking system has to be maintained.

Lets look at this somewhat logically but leaving out patriotism as an emotion that might influence our judgement.

Irelands banking system is part of the Euro currency. That means we are part of a European wide banking system that is wholly integrated across almost all the member countries of the EU. This means we do not have our own currency or reserves of gold or whatever is acceptable as collateral for dealing in international financial markets. Either way there are much more wealthy and important players in the Eurozone than Ireland, and they are not going to allow their currency be brought down by the collapse of a few private companies called banks in Ireland.

Private companies go bust all over the world every day, and the countries involved do not expect to be bankrupt as a result of these companies failing or indeed success.

I can only wonder if our banks were allowed go bust, why some of the successful European banks wouldn’t expand their services into Ireland and provide us with a banking system. Being real about this, a successful European bank could cater for the whole of Ireland as a branch of it’s own network, and would indeed put Ireland in the driving seat when it came to licensing this bank to operate in our jurisdiction.

I’m not saying these companies would be queuing up to do business here as I believe they see us as a banana republic where politicians need backhanders to allow them do business. I’m not sure that it’s true, but it’s understandable why successful companies would have that perception of Ireland. After all, not even one banking executive has been arrested, (even under suspicion), even though the dogs on the street know that the banks have been guilty of something, if not crimes, then immoralities, and anyway the Director of Corporate Enforcement rules for honest trading have clearly been breached, and still nobody has been arrested.

The cynic in me can only wonder as to why Ireland would bail out private companies, to the tune of 50 billion euro, which will put every man woman and child in Ireland in debt up to fifteen thousand euro, on top of their own personal debts.

It does not make any sense to me, and frankly, I have to wonder why the people doing this, are doing it. The only reason I can think of is because the people involved are regarded as public servants and their future salaries and pensions are almost guaranteed, while paying little or no attention to the private sector, i.e. the wealth generators, i.e. the people that always pay the public sector pay bill.

They do not seem to understand that with no private sector wealth creation there is no public sector.

Public service journalism at it,s best.

2009-10-12T00:50:00.003+01:00

Proper journalism at it’s best. Ken Foxe of The Sunday Tribune (http://www.tribune.ie/) is displaying what I believe is the right role for journalism in Ireland, and that, is holding those in authority to account.

Ireland has a so called public service broadcaster, (both radio and television) that should be doing this work, but of all the media in Ireland, it boils down to a private company to highlight and expose this information on what is clearly an abuse of public money.

"A ST Patrick's Day trip for minister Noel Dempsey, his wife Bernadette and three staff in 2007 ended up costing more than €70,000, figures from the Department of Communications show.

Flights for the then communications minister and his wife cost €8,139 each while three more flights for advisors and civil servants cost €6,711 each.

Limousine hire on the trip ended up costing almost €20,000, paid to two different companies in two different cities, according to documents released by the department under the Freedom of Information Act."

The original article is at the link below:

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/oct/11/dempseys-70000-patricks-day-trip/

20 grand for limo hire, mother oh jaysus, who does Dempsey think he is?

On Mary Harney:

In May of that year, Harney and Geoghegan again jetted off to America on the €7,100-an-hour Gulfstream IV, where their car hire bill came to a massive €14,351.

The original article is at the link below:
http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2009/oct/11/hail-mary-full-of-disgrace/

Is it any wonder we can’t get any fairness out of these people? They are so far into cuckoo land in their own lives; they obviously believe that is the kind of money we are all earning.

14 grand for car hire, how long was she there, a year, maybe that would explain why the health service in such a shite state, it’s because the minister was away from her post for a year, to satisfy the car hire bill.

Surving in a city with more taxis than New York.

2009-10-11T21:09:00.005+01:00

Surviving in a city with more taxicabs than NewYork, with a population that is less one tneth of New yorks population.

I live in Dublin Ireland. I am a taxi driver, a self employed small business person, with the same level of bureaucracy as any other business.

I invested my own hard earned money in the industry on the basis of government policies in particular that the government would only issue new taxi licences to those that would provide a suitably equipped wheelchair accessible vehicle. They have now reneged on that decision and will now issue taxi licences to any person that will give them €6300. It does not matter what type or age of vehicle they supply and thus people can get into the taxi industry for a measly investment of about €8000, and they can compete against me even though I have invested over €200,000 to first get into the industry and then stay there, which is becoming significantly more difficult by the day.

It does not matter what nationality you are, or whether your personally suitable to drive a taxi, just give the government the money and they will issue you with a licence. It is highly likely that people with criminal convictions in other countries are driving taxis in Ireland. They may not even be fully qualified to hold a full driving licence.

What happens is this. A person arrives in Ireland with a false driving licence from their own country. They then apply to have an Irish driving licence issued and on the basis that they hold a foreign driving licence for the same category. No official checks are made to establish the licence being surrendered is legitimate, and hey presto like magic after paying over the appropriate fee,s you are now the holder of a full legitimate Irish driving permit. One of the perks of this licence is you can now legitimately drive anywhere in Europe, and a substantial number of other countries with your newly issued legitimately driving permit.

My real gripe here though is, that, it is this permit that actually then allows them to apply for a taxi licence.

The amount of drug dealing, money laundering, and general complaints from the public, particularly about taxi drivers taking the wrong routes, or following satnav instructions that clearly take the longest routes, and then insisting on full payment for this, has increased dramatically in the last two years. The authorities’ response to us is to tell us to come up with the evidence, which is, of course almost impossible for us to do.

It is also quite annoying that whenever anybody brings up this subject, the first thing you are called is a racist, as it is not politically correct to question anybody that is not Irish.

It is quite onerous to complain to the authorities, and they dismiss this as a concern preferring to claim they have improved the overall quality of the taxi service because, the taxi travelling public are not making these complaints to them, however we as taxi service providers are getting these complaints on a daily basis.

In an attempt to massage unemployment rate figures, the government decided to subsidise unemployed people into the taxi industry. Using a scheme called the Back to work enterprise allowance (BTWEA) the government provides feasibility study and start up grants, to people that are more than three years unemployed in an attempt to help them become self employed.

The largest financial part of this scheme is the weekly payment they receive. For the first year they receive a payment equivalent to 100% of their social welfare entitlement, 75% for the second year, 50% for the third year, and 25 % for the fourth year. In addition to this the keep, what are called their secondary benefits, free medical treatment (medical card), rent allowance, Xmas bonus, back to work school allowance, special dietary allowance, etc, all their entitlements as thought they were still relying solely on a social welfare payment, and by the way this is all tax free. For an average person this results in payments totalling a minimum of €30,000 per year for four years. They also have the luxury of returning to a social welfare payment only at any time if the business does not work out, unlike those of us that invested our own money, we would have to satisfy a means test and various other criteria in order to prove we are entitled to a social welfare payment.

While Irish people have to be genuinely 3 years unemployed, there are very different criteria for non Irish to qualify for this scheme. There are too many combinations things to go into here, but suffice it to say, you could arrive in Ireland, make a claim for social welfare on the basis that you are unemployed, and then also apply for the driving licence, the taxi licence, etc (as described above), and by the time your social welfare claim has been processed, you would qualify for BTWEA, and voila, if the timing is right, you would be a self employed business person, driving a taxi, in a few weeks, with a government subsidy of €600 per week, tax free.

I would have to speculate how these people meet the capital costs of buying a vehicle, the taxi licence, insurance, etc, but I have my suspicions that this also comes from the government in grants under various liberally interpreted headings. Anyway the government refuses to say how many people are availing of this scheme and under what headings they avail of financial assistance etc, so without that information it is impossible to quantify precisely accurate figures.

What is particularly shocking about the official government position is that they say they don’t know how many have availed of the scheme, because they do not keep that level of detail. This is public money being used to subsidise competition against privately invested money, that is ultimately driving the private investors out of business, and the government say, they don’t know how many are doing this, that is just not acceptable.

On the face of it, this is a very generous scheme that gives a person a serious break, by trying to assist somebody that is long term unemployed to help them to create employment and thus generate an income for them, and hopefully this lasts for a long time.

The spirit of this scheme is wonderful for people, however the spirit of the scheme is being seriously damaged because of the way it is operated and administered. The department of Social Welfare pays for this scheme, but it is administered in the main by quangos (quasi autonomous nongovernmental organisations, QUANGO for short). These organisations are the government at arm’s length, if it goes right the government takes the credit, if it goes wrong the government blames the quango. These quangos report successful outcomes every year, in particular for their enterprise strategies.

A typical enterprise report will state “ the quango assisted 101 small businesses to start up last year”, what this should say is “The quango assisted one small business start up last year, and we also helped 100 people to become taxi drivers, because that is what is happening. When they are asked to state exactly what they mean they usually say they can’t reveal that information for confidential reasons.

The reality is the scheme has been available to Irish people for a long time, and the vast majority of people now receiving access to it are non Irish people. I have to be honest and say if I could avail of such a scheme in another country, then I would gladly do it, so I’m not blaming the individuals for availing of this scheme. The reality is the quangos use non Irish people on this scheme to justify their own existence. If they had no people availing of the scheme, then their enterprise strategies would be seen for exactly what they are, SCAMS, to justify jobs for their friends.

The official EU opinion on this scheme is that “Displacement must not occur as a result of this subsidy” i.e. you can’t subsidise a person into an industry, that will ultimately result in their competition being put out of business” which is exactly what is happening in the taxi industry today. However the EU will only say it is a matter for the national government and the national Irish government refuses to acknowledge there is a problem, because if they did, they would have to disclose how much money per year the government are subsidising my competitors by.

Anecdotally I put the figure at about 4000 people per year, at a cost of about €120 million per year.

At this point the only people in the taxi industry that will still be in business in a few years time will be those that have availed of this subsidy, those of us that have had our investment undermined by the operation of this scheme no longer have access to finance (this is being refused because the financial institutions know the market is over saturated). We are currently living off what is left of our initial investments, and once our cars need replacing we will not have any money to replace them, thus the subsidised taxi driver will have what is left of the industry, and the future will be good for them, as they will not have their competition subsidised as there are plans to scrap the BTWEA for taxi driving.

That’s how I survive as a small business operator of a taxi cab in Dublin, Ireland, a capital city at the heart of the EU, the most ambitious project of unification ever attempted. I live in poverty, and the EU and Irish Government do nothing to help. They can bail out big businesses to the tune of billions of euro, but when it comes to small businesses the same rules do not apply.

I’m not sure how long I or any of my colleagues can last, but I do know, it won,t be long.

To the Irish Green party members.

2009-10-11T20:34:00.007+01:00

The Green party hanging on to power for dear life is something of an amazing spectacle to watch.

On Saturday 10th of October 2009, the Green party leadership presented a newly negotiated Programme for Government.

The negotiations overshadowed the resignation of John ODonoghue the Ceann Comhairle of Dail Eireann for wasting public money.

However the membership somehow managed to swallow this, even though they know none of the issues highlighted will be implemented by Fianna Fail.

The main item the Greens are clapping themselves on the backs for is the statement that no new schemes in relation to third level education fee,s will be implemented during the Programme.

It seems to me the Greens are particularly naive when it comes to Fianna Fail political pragmatism in relation to how they hold power at all costs, and ultimately limit their personal liability to the voting public.

Here’s my political reality for the Greens so called saviour policies.

We all know that Irish universities funding has been an item on the political landscape for some time now. I don’t know what the reality to the funding issue is, as there has been no real debate about it, other than the government saying that removing fee’s for third level education has disproportionately favoured the rich, as the target of attracting people from the traditional working class or areas of particular disadvantage and has not benefitted these communities in any significant way, and therefore logically fee’s should be restored. That’s the cynical pragmatism from Fianna Fail, and it’s quite clear there is a much more complicated scenario going on.

The government cannot charge fee’s for 2009 and therefore, at the earliest could restore fee’s for the 2010 terms. However they could not charge people that had already started courses, in 2007, 2008, and 2009, most likely if they tried to, the courts would over-rule them.

On the other hand if they reintroduce fee’s for the 2010 term, there will be a political backlash in 2011, and as this government is under so much pressure to go, any tiny issue could bring them down, when in reality they want to go on to 2012 in the hope that something will happen that will endear them to the voting public.

Also if they re-introduce any new schemes requiring students to pay fee’s, they will do the incoming government a favour, and very definitely that is something they will not do, under any circumstances.

It is most likely that whatever scheme is introduced will not come into play until after the next election.

Either way Fianna Fail were never going to re-introduce third levels fee’s in the current economic / political climate and the concession you believe was hard fought for and won was a non entity in the first place.

I often wonder if the Irish Green party realise how much damage they are doing to green issues both nationally in Ireland and particularly in the International political system. The international green reputation is being completely undermined, and is being put back by decades as the cynicism of people looking at the greens in power in Ireland, is only showing that the Irish Greens will do anything to hold on to power, no matter what the cost is to ordinary people, and thus therefore others can assume that greens in power in other parts of the world will do the same.

The Irish green party is a political sitting duck. Fianna Fail has succeeded in corrupting their junior partners again, just by association with them.

Lisbon Treaty 2009

2009-09-29T10:15:00.002+01:00

My prediction for the Lisbon treaty vote 2009 is as follows.

A turnout of between 50 and 60 percent.

The nearer to a 50% turnout will result in a narrow no vote.

The nearer to a 60% turnout will result in a narrow Yes vote.

While I want a Yes vote, it sticks in my gut to be on the same side as the Fianna Fail incompetents, the people that are responsible for the current economic mess, my country is in.

So please vote Yes.

New EU initiative to talk to its citizens.

2009-08-26T21:18:00.002+01:00

The EU has launched a new initiative to communicate with the people of Ireland. It can be accessed at http://www.talktoeu.ie

I think it,s a good idea. Below is my rant on the use of the infrastructural funds for the M50 and the Luas.

I have to wonder what criteria is used by the EU when assessing assistance with public infrastructure projects.

I see from the website here: http://www.talktoeu.ie/Global/Final%20County%20Reports%20for%20site/dublin.pdf that the Luas red line is receiving 83 million in grants and 60 million in EIB loans. Does the EU know that this service is of no use whatsoever to the people living on the north-side of Dublin. That means half the population of Dublin never use this service. On that basis I would have to question the terms of reference that are used to assess this service for grant aid. Clearly the EU see,s it as a benefit to Dublin, but personally I see it as money to a private company.

The M50, again the EU see this road as a significant project worthy of very substantial support, but where do I start with this one.

Prior to the removal of the toll booths, the congestion on this road was legendary. Despite the voices of various experts demanding the removal of the toll booths to stop the congestion the government did not ask them to remove them, and they also never insisted the section of the contract be honoured by raising the toll barriers at peak times. the company operating the service made astronomical profits while insisting that the removal of the barriers would not improve the speed of the users, well the company was wrong and the experts were right. Anyway thats historical, this is today.

What has replaced the toll booths is a series of cameras that record the registration numbers of the cars using the bridge. The company then expects the user to pay 3 euros by 8 p.m. the next day in a series of shops that are sparse and in a lot of cases, the shops are closed at 6 p.m.. You then get a letter from the company telling you the charge is now 6 euro if you pay within 14 days. If you don,t pay then you get a charge for an extra 41.50 which now leaves you with a bill for 47.50. After 56 days you then get another penalty of an extra 104.50 leaving you with a bill for 152 euro for the privilege of using a bridge that was bought by the government. This system is for non registered users, registered users have a slightly different system using electronic tags etc, but only frequent users of the bridge use this method.

Why should this be significant to the EU? My answer is, the West link bridge is a small section of the M50 that is operated by a private company for it,s own profits. This company is allowed to impose penal terms and conditions on consumers that no other commercial company could apply to its consumers. The reality is EU (I include Irish people in the EU description) tax payers paid for the road on either side of the bridge and yet this private company is permitted by the government to charge for the use of the bridge. If the road was not there then the bridge would be useless.

A recent report said that 12,500 car owners were being mistakenly billed by the company every week. Thats a mistake that could potentially bring in 75 thousand euro per week. In any event when you are wrongly billed by this company, the onus is on the car owner to prove they did not use the bridge, and the methods employed by the company to dissuade you from arguing your point is very time consuming and onerous, again a tactic that no other commercial operation would be allowed to do.

Other transport initiatives the EU seem proud to be associated with are the Traffic Management projects, such as, the QBCs, signposting,cycle parking, traffic calming and pedestrian signals, all of which are atrocious to say the least.

Ultimately the EU should know exactly how EU money is going to benefit the citizens not just satisfy a set of criteria the government (national and local) tell them has been satisfied.

I told you so.

2009-06-25T01:22:00.002+01:00

This is one of these things that I have to say and I need published so that when it arises in the future I can actually say I TOLD YOU SO.

Mainly this issue depends on what reason you are making a decision, I want decisions to serve every Irish person, some want to protect rich people, some want to protect the public servants which includes the elected politicians, some want to penalise the poor and the unemployed, and the sick, and the old, and the generally accepted easy targets.

Either way it’s most likely the strong will be protected and the weak will suffer. At this point in time 24th of June 2009, there is pandemonium within the Government about a children’s hospital not being able to perform life saving operations that will save their lives.

The governments constant ranting about pragmatic decisions are political rhetoric to justify their decisions that the little people are expendable and the people at the top are not. That’s a reasonable pragmatic position for a government that wants to justify its decisions, rather than a government that wants it decisions and actions to justify it’s position as a government that exists to serve all the people.

Anyway, what I want is the right decisions to help every Irish citizen. The ordinary people do not want much, just a job, that’s not unreasonable. Most Irish people are not very ambitious and a reasonable living is all they need to satisfy them.

What Ireland needs now is a can do attitude, and I know there are many Irish people out there with the right attitude that will assist their country in it’s hour of need, all the government has to do is ask them to help, they will step up to the breach, do the job, and go quietly back into the shadows when they have done their jobs, no honours required, just the personal satisfaction of knowing they helped their fellow citizens.

In light of today’s OECD and IMF reports, its clear the government are in serious trouble as elected representatives, and as such that is what will motivate them to decide to hurt the little people.

It doesn’t have to be that way, the best decision would be to nationalise all the banks, free up investment capital, and encourage entrepreneurs to create jobs.

The real issue on Ireland being uncompetitive in the real world, is the cost of living, which has increased exponentially over the past 20 years while the same government party has enjoyed the rewards of being a nett beneficiary of the cost of homes, banks lending mortgages to people that should be in local authority homes, with dodgy paperwork, etc, I’m not going to go into all that stuff, either way it’s all increased the cost of living in Ireland which means employers that manufacture low skilled or low value products and services cannot compete with Eastern Europe or China in the relevant industrial sectors in the world markets.

On the other hand there are over 750 thousand people in the workforce category that did not receive any formal education. These are the parents of today’s children that cannot find work in Ireland, and not only are parents unemployed, so are their children, and we are not happy about that.

Most of us as parents will struggle along and greet the oncoming poverty with the same survival instincts that got us through the 70s the 80s and even the 90s, but what we don’t want is our children to suffer the same level of poverty that we have persevered through, we did the suffering so our kids would not have to suffer, but it’s no doubt the suffering will come, because the government will protect rich people, and won’t ask for, or allow help from the ordinary decent citizen, because they do not have the right connections.

What Ireland requires now is a chance to compete with the rest of the world, we need to encourage and foster, entrepreneurism, like never before, and we need those entrepreneurs to be the best in the world. We need to ensure they have all the right governmental conditions to allow them to exist in a European wide community. Ireland is a long way off being the business capital of the world, and the government has to wake up to that reality. We need to encourage our own entrepreneurs that will create jobs for Irelands citizens, then the public sector can sleep well in their beds, because without the wealth creators, there will be no public servants and the first to go, will be the elected politicians.

We need to work our way out of this recession, and we need entrepreneurs and staff to co-operate and collude in making that happen.

Will the people succeed? I do not think so because this government are the biggest increasers to the cost of living, which constantly makes my country uncompetitive.

Never in the history of economics has a country taxed it’s way back to prosperity, and it’s not going to work here.

Hard choices are on the way, but they will only affect the little people, well I have news for the government, and the rich, when they come for you, there will be nobody left to say stop.

Regards

John Fitzpatrick

Taxi customers in Dublin, Ireland.

2009-06-11T16:38:00.002+01:00

For those that think taxi drivers are always moaning. See how you would feel if this happened to you. Dropped a passenger off at 1.52 pm on June 11th 2009. My next job started at 3.02pm and finished 11 minutes later, and the cost was €10.50cent. This was a radio job from Donnycarney to Beaumont, two women, with eight shopping bags.

After emptying the boot of eight shopping bags while the woman paying was getting the money ready, and her friend was at the door with the bags, I went to get paid.
She told me that she had about 8 euro only, so I bit my lip and kept my mouth shut, mainly because I would have flipped at them and I do not like arguing with women. She told me she would make it up to me next time; I thought to myself, there will not be a next time.
When she handed me the money I had to bite my lips harder when I seen what she was paying me with. She emptied her purse of all the shrapnel she had accumulated since her last foreign holiday.
I got €8.06cent, €2.44cent short of the actual fare. It was made up of one 2 euro coin, three 1 euro coins, four 50cent coins, two 20cent coins, two 10cent coins, four 5cent coins, nine 2cent coins, eight 1cent coins, totalling €8.06cent.
I know some people will insist I should have demanded full payment, but I couldn’t, I thought it was best to cut my losses.
Therefore, for those that think taxi drivers have it easy, there is documentary evidence that for more than two hours in Dublin city, and with the biggest radio company in the country, my gross earnings for those two hours was €20.36cent.
I do not think anybody will get rich at that rate of pay.

Irish Journalism

2009-04-20T23:48:00.003+01:00

I despair at the role of the media in Ireland. Having just watched Questions and Answers and Vincent Browne I can only come to the conclusion that the total Irish establishment is steering the current agenda of the government. Is Vincent Browne the only journalist in this country with any integrity. The rest seem to be whistling to the governments tune.

Come on the rest of you journalists, get up off your behinds and challenge the system.

For the record

2009-04-09T00:46:00.002+01:00

I,m publishing this because I,ve been saying it for years. I really hoped I was wrong, but I really knew I was right.

When the brain drain comes this time, Fianna Fail will not be able to blame the English on this one.

The last time in the 1980s they said it was England's fault we could not employ degree holders, so they were attracting our newly educated young people, this time in 2009 it,s Irelands fault, that we have no employment available to, not only degree holders, but also for the rest of us.

On that issue it remains to be seen why we would educate people in disciplines that have no employment prospects in Ireland.

We are very definitely educating people for emigration AGAIN.

How stupid is that?

TESCO rips us off on diesel.

2009-04-07T21:22:00.002+01:00

Regarding the diesel price increase in todays budget.

I went into Tesco Clearwater today about 3.45pm and the security guard told me it was closed because all the tills were off because the price of diesel was being increased.

That was nearly an hour before the Irish Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan told the world he was increasing the excise cost of diesel.

That increase is supposed to be on the wholesale price of diesel, which should take a few days to reach the pumps.

I went back at about 8pm and all the diesel pumps were locked, no diesel for sale until after midnight, which means they will not charging the higher price until then. It,s amazing how the TESCO crystal ball could predict the excise increase in diesel.

You would not think that TESCO, the consumers friend would rip anybody off like that.

And no I,m not going to comment on the budget, it,s too depressing to contemplate or analyse.

Ridiculing the Goodbody taxi report.

2009-04-02T21:02:00.004+01:00

It’s clear that this report very clearly mixes all forms spsv,s, and as such, the picture is totally distorted, in particular in relation to the Dublin scenario as opposed to the rest of the country.
There are typing and grammar errors which make some of the findings hard to define. Page 41 paragraph 5.3 states “Taken together with the demand analysis in Section 4, these data suggest that demand is peaked around the Thursday to Saturday period and particularly at night time, but that while supply is also peaked around those time, it is less peaked than demand”. These is obviously meant to be “this” and “suggest” is obviously meant to be suggests. Why is this relevant? Because these errors make the report hard to read and analysis of this type of work has been proven to be a tactic to confuse the reader, and thus make reasonable argument much less likely.

Table 5.2 on page 41
Why is the mileage rate of 20 to 40 kms not presented as 20kms to 30kms and 30kms to 40kms? The next mileage rate of 40 to 60kms is also presented in twenty kms chunks instead of 10 kms like the other groups.

These two groups account for 74.9% of all mileage for taxis between 20k and 60k. I would suggest that the higher annual kilometre rates per year apply. Why is it relevant? Because our average annual fuel estimation will differ greatly. A car averaging 60 kms will last no more than 5 years, a car with 20kms will last ten years. Maintenance costs will differ greatly. The hours worked will differ greatly. In theory somebody doing 20kms could put in the same hours as somebody doing 60kms, in reality in Dublin that’s impossible. If you could get on a taxi rank and spend time there then you would be clocking up the hours, but you cannot get on a rank, so therefore you drive around and thus increase your mileage.

It states there are 100 million taxi trips per year, and that 73percent of those are on Friday and Saturday. That works out at 25 trips per cab every Friday and 25 trips every Saturday.

That leaves 19 trips (or 4 per day per cab) between the other five days of the week.

If you take the 100 million trips per year, divide that by 365 (the number of days in a year), and divide that by the number of cabs 27429 (at end of 2008) then that says we are doing an average of 10 trips per day.

Thats 70 trips per week.

Page 42 states that over 85% of all cab trips are taken between Thursday and Saturday. This seems to be how the consultants define peak time. In my experience in Dublin with a radio from a dispatch company for over ten years, this is not and could not be the case. Demand is fairly continuous throughout Monday to Friday and in reality there is little or no work from the despatch company on Saturday or Sunday. This is the largest despatch company in the country.

Figure 5.1 refers to the PA Consultants survey of cab drivers 2008. The survey document (below) is ambiguous to say the least. The survey says, cab drivers, however the questionnaire document clearly distinguishes between drivers and operators. A driver might not be a cab operator (renter) and an operator need not necessarily be a driver (supplier of rented cabs).

Anyway there is a copy of the questioonaire below, my comments are in blue.

On page 44 they refer to €11 net per hour (another typo here, it’s nett) they also use source 31 as justifying this figure because the unions agreed this with the insurance companies. Why don’t these so called expert consultants understand that we do not have unions in the taxi industry? The report states that operating costs are approx €17,000 and thats roughly in line with my figures below (except I include depreciation of capital assets, which they don,t, and my figures are approx €22,000). I have consulted with a substantial number of business people and there are very few that have before tax profit margins of 100% and yet Goodbody would have us believe that we have before tax profit margins of more than 200%. This is impossible and goes against all acceptable norms in normal commercial trading.

They say we nett €11 per hour gives a 52 hour working week totals €572 per week, which is €29,744 per year for a 52 week year. They say running costs are approx €17,663 which gives you another €340 per week or €6.50 per hour, which gives you a gross total of €17.50 per hour and an annual gross of €47,320 on a 52 hour week. I,m using a 52 week year, they use a 48 week year which would bring the hourly rate higher again. As i said the report assumes we are all lying about our incomes. In my conclusion somebody is lying, but it,s not the taxi operators. It,s also not Goodbody, because they will say they took the figures from the PA Consulting report. It,s interesting to note though there is no evidence in the public domain about the exercise undertaken by the Taxi advisory council in it,s early days. This invovled licencing a Garda and supplying him / her with a wheelchair accessible taxi to work as we would, to try to assess the real income. I understand the report back was, “they could not see how any taxi driver could earn a living driving a taxi”.

Below was published on irishtaxdrivers.com before I had access to the report.

Steve, I,m not being critical, but it’s extremely difficult establish a taxi drivers nett income. Most of us take what we earn weekly, deduct fuel, other running costs, like a radio, repairs, nct test, meter sealing / calibration etc etc on a weekly basis, and then what’s left is what you feel is your nett pay, and from that you pay your mortgage, car repayments, etc etc.

The reality is we live hand to mouth on a weekly basis, but as a business there are annual considerations that we do not consider. For instance car loan repayments and interest on these also need to be considered.

Replacing your car after it has expired should be in your running costs annually, (but most taxi drivers think because the tax authorities allow for depreciation that this does not need to be included), but reality again is, if you invest your own money in a vehicle, then, that vehicle, will eventually be worthless and require replacement from your weekly income. If you take that into consideration, then your income will be much lower than you really think.

I know how much it costs me to drive my car for a kilometer, in terms of fuel, insurance, wear and tear, maintainance, radio, and the plethora of bureaucratic nonsense’s that we are subjected to, and I know that my before income tax earnings are netting about €300 per week, without leaving any re-investment capital. I also know how much time it is taking me to actually get the money, and although it’s not considered for tax purposes, it’s that issue that is really getting us down.

I know my radio is €4500 per year, fuel about €10,000 per year, insurance €2000 per year ( I had to pay €7500 for 3 years due to a crash), maintainance about €1500 per year, depreciation on average about €4000 per year (still not replacement value) road tax, nct, licence renewal, accountant, other sundries about €2000, and that does not include a cup of coffee, breakfast, lunch all of which are considered allowable for income tax purposes. No pension provision, sick pay, rainy days breakdowns, holiday pay, replacement of car etc.

That’s annual running costs of about €22,000 per year, without the above, then you need to consider the individuals personal income tax allowances which are totally individualised, and then you end up with the real nett pay, but which clearly does not include replacement of vehicle or equipment as necessary.

Reality is we are living out of the price of our cars.

Nett pay in the taxi industry is the only industry that is averaged out, by these consultants. Other price regulated industries are allowed take into account their actual running costs and the regulator strikes a rate, and, if, they, do not agree with it, they can go to court to have it considered by the judiciary, who will examine their claim with relevant expertise available to them and then make a judgement accordingly. Taxi operators do not have access to the courts under any circumstances (even if we had money, therefore I assume that’s what the SIPTU claim for an independent appeals system is about). They are allowed consider all normal business costs such as pensions, financial reserves, a downturn in business, etc, but taxi operators are not considered worthy by the Goodbody consultants as entitled to the same normal business practices available to every other business, including A&L Goodbody. As corporate entities we are entitled to limited liability just like any other company, which seems to have passed by A&L Goodbody. Ladies and Gents reading this, if you are ever in a position to hire A&L Goodbody as a business consultancy, think long and hard as to what you actually require before opting for this company, it appears to me as though the company does not seem to understand that business rules apply to all businesses equally.

Table 5.6 on page 45 distinguishes between taxis and other cab drivers (and yet none of the rest of the report can do this, because the consultants claim the whole industry is the cab industry, but when it suits the report they can differentiate between the taxi section and the others).

In table 5.8 they produce Dublin drivers hours in a table represented by groups starting at 20 hours or less and then in 10 hour sections up to more than 70 hours. This group represents almost a 150% increase in 2008 from 2005 for those working more than 70 hours per week, a decrease of 25% of those working 61 to 70 hours per week over the same timescale, and a 33% increase for those working 51 to 60 hours per week, and another decrease in the 41 to 50 hour per week category. This table could only be viewed as dysfunctional by anybody that knows what they are talking about.
Table 5.9 is equally dysfunctional because it moves the time hours to 15 hour sections. This report changes from various numbers of hours to suit the conclusions and recommendations and is not consistent in it,s comparisons. This table also does not distinguish between hours worked at cab driving and their other jobs. So what are we supposed to believe? This table says 85% of part time drivers are driving between 45 and 75 hours per week. If that’s a part time job, then I’m glad I don’t have one of their full time jobs, it must mean working 100 hours per week, is what Goodbody considers a full time job.
Page 47 of the report states the number of taxi operators in Dublin, in percentage terms affiliated to despatch companies has decreased from 2005 to 2008, however the report somehow seems to ignore the massive increase in licence numbers, which means the despatch companies have more taxi operators than ever before. The percentage level between 2005 and 2008 bears no resemblance to reality in Dublin. If the numbers affiliated in to despatch companies are correct in percentage terms, then considering the number of taxi licence increases in the same period, the despatch companies cannot adequately cater for the amount of taxi operators they had in 2008.

The Goodbody report refers to their household survey and their statement that 73% of all cab trips are between Friday midnight until 3 am, and Saturday midnight until 3 am somehow seems to ignore the fact that if they are right, then the household survey is based on the opinions of people that were drunk when they got into the taxi, however, realistically drunk people have no idea what exactly a taxi actually costs. They do not seem to realise that this statement is impossible to be correct. For this statement to be accurate, you would need every cab in the country working the hours of midnight and 3am and they would each have to do 26 jobs in this 3 hour window to satisfy the demand. There,s the issue that underpins all the lies and inaccuracies in this report. The Goodbody version of peak demand is clearly flawed. For the version of Goodbodys peak demand to be correct, each cab in Ireland would have to do 17 jobs in each of those 3 hours. The real average time for jobs during these hours is about 40 minutes (thats a conservative estimate) so that means about 5 jobs each per hour, or 15 jobs each for Goodbodys peak demand period. That also means there are 11 people per taxi waiting for a taxi for more than three hours during this period, which is clearly not the reality. If you take the other reality that not every taxi driver is working during these hours and assume that half of all taxi drivers are working, then 18 people per taxi are waiting more than 3 hours for a taxi during these hours. If Houdini was a taxi driver, he could not satisfy those demands. I can only assume that Goodbodys want a taxi on demand for every potential customer, whenever they require it.
Thats mean by its very nature that taxi drivers must be waiting around for customers.

The averages that Goodbody uses are clearly flawed. . It includes taxi drivers, hackney drivers, limo drivers, WAT drivers and then averages the info. Scientifically it would not be acceptable to include such a diverse group and then present it as an average. e.g. Limo driver gets about 500 euro for 1 job, taxi driver gets about 7euro for 1 job, hackney gets about 10 euro for 1 job, WAT gets 7 euro for 1 job. 4 Jobs averaged is now 525 euro, So averaging in this industry is clearly not scientifically acceptable.

This report clearly relies on the assumption that all taxi operators are liars, and the only way to average out things, is to find, what are acceptable (to them) scientific methods to try to establish what is reality.

A&L Goodbody should not use terms of reference which would not be acceptable to any other industry.

Table 6.3 on page 49 is an actual contradiction of all notions of reality in Dublin, again the reliance on the household survey is such a joke, that no more comments are required.
Paragraph 3.7

It states there are 100 million taxi trips per year, and that 73percent of those are on Friday and Saturday.

That leaves 19 trips (or 4 per day per cab) between the other five days of the week.

If you take the 100 million trips per year, divide that by 365 (the number of days in a year), and divide that by the number of cabs 27429 (at end of 2008) then that says we are doing an average of 10 trips per day.

Thats 70 trips per week.

This is clearly not accurate, it,s a long long time since I got 70 trips in a week.

On the other hand it also states that Dublin has 2 fifths of the taxi market at 40 million trips per year. When you do the sums for dublin you get a very different picture for Dublin, which has about 60% of cabs and only 40% of usage. This would clearly give a very different outcome for incomes and running costs etc. The solution is quite clear though 9000 Dublin taxi operators should move to other parts of the country. Thats clearly not going to happen, but the real solution is that Dublin clearly needs a survey to assess the real picture.

It also states the demand in Dublin is 83% clearly both figure cannot be right and both figures would produce very different results.

I’ve no more intention of analysing this report any further, because I am now convinced the only place we can’t get any form of natural justice is in the courts, and because we, as individual taxi operators, cannot afford to go to court, the chances are that we will only get natural justice when the EU intervenes.

The reality of EU intervention will only happen when other EU countries taxi operators representative organisations take court cases to protect their positions. Then maybe, Irish taxi operators will get natural justice. The reality though now is, those of us that made legitimate investments in the industry will be long gone out of the industry, gone bust with tax problems, marriage problems, family problems, committed suicide, ending up as drug addicts, alcoholics, down and outs, homeless, etc. The only taxi operators that will be able to survive this regulatory regime will be those with state subsidies.

That’s the reality for those of us that invested in an industry strongly regulated by the Irish government.

A worldwide recession has arrived in Ireland, but somehow it is disproportionately affecting Ireland, in terms of Irelands place in the world.Ireland is a very small country with 4 million people, with what would appear to be an anti small business government. There is one thing they seem to be missing, and its this. The business community around the world do not see any difference between large or small businesses, they just see businesses, and if the Irish government can treat small businesses badly, then there is no reason why they won’t treat big business badly when it suits them. As such why would any business make an investment in Ireland?

Protest hots up.

2009-03-01T20:36:00.000Z

Revamping Irelands taxi industry.

2009-02-25T09:23:00.004Z

Recognising the current regulatory system is not working adequately for passengers or service providers, there is a clear need to overhaul the whole regulatory system. The taxi commission needs to reflect the needs of consumers and taxi operators in an equal and mutually beneficial manner.

The commission needs to consult on a county by county basis with the service providers, and the consumers. The consumers can be represented by a process devised by the taxi regulator. The taxi operators should be represented by an elected body consisting of every taxi operator in the county. No money should be paid for this position, and only verifiable expenses can be covered for this representation, i.e. mileage paid for travelling to and from meetings. This process to be overseen by the commission.

Dublin should be divided into sections along the lines of the postal areas, i.e. Dublin 1, Dublin 15, Dublin22, etc. A chairperson to be appointed by each section. These chairpersons will then meet annually and elect five members to act on their behalf with the Commission. An agreed schedule of meetings to be agreed annually where the chairpersons will inform and consult with taxi operators. Again the commission will oversee this process.

A schedule of meetings annually should be agreed for every county, along with expenses to cover the costs of (renting a hall or hotel room) for meeting with taxi operators prior to the commission meeting.

Where there is an emergency issue, the commission will agree to take such items as the first item on the agenda.

Under no circumstances should these representatives be able to profit in any way for representing their colleagues.

What should they be seeking?

1) A limited number of taxi licences for each county. These should be non transferrable and revert back to the state upon death or retirement. The licence should have no monetary value under any circumstances. You may be able to will it to a member of your immediate family i.e. wife / husband/son/daughter, but if they don’t want it, then it goes back to the state.

2) A 3 yearly (or yearly if required) review of above. If more licences are needed then it’s with the agreement of the county reps. Prior agreement as to how quantity and demand is defined.

3) Only full time, i.e. one income, from taxi driving is allowed. Other income can disqualify you from holding a taxi licence.

4) All Social welfare recipients have to surrender their PSV driving licence to qualify for any social welfare payment.

5) Knowledge test to be completely reviewed, (current licence holders have to pass new test within 5 years).

6) Vehicle quality standards can then be implemented.

7) A common sense approach to regulations, regards standards etc.

8) An independent body for appeals for more serious breaches of the regulations.

9) Taxi ranks in appropriate places for passengers.

10) No commission enforcers. All taxi regulations to be enforced by the Gardai.

11) Annual licence renewals should include an administration cost only.

12) Meter installers should be licenced to verify calibration etc. Cost should be regulated by the commission.

13) Despatch companies should be regulated by the commission to ensure fair play for drivers and an efficient service to passengers. One taxi despatch phone number for each county, One euro charge per call which will be deducted from the fare. This will deter people from calling bogusly, and the euro charge will pay for the despatch companies services. No more weekly radio rental charges. Despatch companies need to define their own systems for account holders.

14) Commission should have a number of vehicles available to drivers involved in crashes, or for maintenance issues.

15) No taxi rentals allowed.

16) One taxi licence per vehicle per county. Multiple county PSV licences can be available to individuals, but only one county licence can be permitted per car.

17) Possibility of a night time licence only, to be researched.

18) State and semi state employees’ and pension holders to be excluded from holding a taxi licence.

19) A Unique roof sign for each county. (Some overlap might be required as in, Leixlip, / Clonee, or/ Ashbourne, in Dublin / Meath / Kildare county boundaries. A common sense approach to this is required with agreement of the local representatives. In these circumstances the possibility of ripping off passengers should be minimised.

20) Flexible working arrangements where they are agreed locally, i.e. in rural Ireland, you can pick up two couples from two different hotels going in the same direction. The fare to be split equally between the two couples.

21) Incentives to full time drivers to purchase new vehicles, i.e. removal of all taxes on new vehicles. This would have 2 benefits newer cars at all times, and less fares increases for passengers.

22) A government backed insurance scheme with access to a pension.

23) The option for each driver to pay full PRSI contributions.

24) Much stiffer penalties for overcharging.

25) An immediate abolition of the current commission.

26) Gardai should stop issuing tickets to taxis trying to get on the ranks. (They can move them on, but no more tickets).

Irish taxi drivers are paupers.

2009-02-23T23:10:00.012Z

I need to explain this post. I started work at 8.30 am on 22nd February 2009. I got 2 jobs, one for €13, the second was for €7. They were cash jobs and I had to give them the printed receipts. My next 3 jobs were as above. THe printed receipts do not lie. They show the start time, the finish time,the distance and the price. They also show the receipt numbers which shows this is factually what happened. I can,t change the printed receipts in any way. In this case they show that my next job was at 12.45, finished at 12.57, 2.9 kilometers, Leeson street to the Morrison hotel, €10.50 receipt number 6288. Next job was at 2.46pm finished at 2.58, 3.2 kilometers, Parnell Square to Cabra, €10.50 receipt number 6289. Next job was at 4.08pm and finished at 4.26pm, 3.8 kilometers, Cabra to Heuston,€12.90, receipt number 6290.

Clearly this is official evidence that it took me from 12.45 until 16.26 to gross the grand total of €33.90 for three and a half hours work, thats 9.69 per hour as a business person in Ireland of 2009.

Why is it important that this type of information is published? The reason is that when this information is published with documentary evidence (that is controlled by the state) then they can not plead ignorance in the courts. In our language they can not say they did not know, if it,s in the public domain, it,s their job to know about it.

They can claim they did not receive emails or letters or anything, but if it,s published on a blog, then thats it, its in the public domain and they should know about it.

I can afford to die.

2009-02-20T22:40:00.003Z

Listening to Jim Waldron’s speech yesterday I was quite moved and upset about his comments about a taxi operator that had worked up to a week before his death from cancer, because he did not qualify for any form of social welfare payment.

Later on I was looking through irishtaxi.org and Roy’s comments on it started me thinking about it again.

I had read various comments from another number of taxi operators, all young men, attending doctors and hospitals for various reasons. Crazy taxi and Silverbullet from our forum Irishtaxidrivers.com had made comments about their own personal health issues, (these were most likely flippant comments, but I suspect they are more serious than they let on).

My story.

I started thinking about my own position. I’m 48. Left school aged 14 in 1974 to work in the clothing industry (which was on its knees even at that stage). Met my future wife in 1975 (she also worked in the clothing manufacturing industry). We got married in 1979 and had 2 sons by 1981. That’s what you did in those days, none of that living together stuff in those days. It’s funny because once you were married you were instantly treated with a different respect by other men, all of a sudden you were a mature married man which now entitled you to act like all the other men. Your opinions were listened to differently and there was an assumption of some kind of magic transformation from immature child to mature man.

In the eighties clothing manufacturing along with lots of other industries eventually died and tens of thousands of people ended up on the dole. In Ireland in the 1980s, signing on the dole was a shameful act and it still is today in 2009. Nobody wants to sign on, as the nature of Irish people is to never be a burden on the state or other citizens and somehow those signing on end up feeling that’s exactly what they are, even though they had paid the contributions to the Insurance policy that makes up the payments for Unemployment benefit. I assume this stems from the formation of the state where nobody ever wanted to burden their neighbours, and pride being the monster that it is, it’s most likely those needing assistance were too proud to ask for it.

Anyway, I spent the eighties doing all types of work that I could get, sometimes my wife would get work and I would then mind the children while she worked. We did any kind of work we could get, dirty, dangerous, menial, and sometimes we got work at our professions in the dying clothing industry, but mostly we had to rely on the dole.

Anyway fast forward a bit, we started a small business making curtains and window blinds, and this in the main sustained us and reared the children until the mid 90s when the competition became so fierce that it was impossible to make a reasonable living. I got a job and my wife also got a job and we ran the business almost in a part time capacity, but in reality we were working seven days a week for very little reward, however, that kept us going until 1999, when the business failed completely and the job I had, finished, and then, I bought a wheelchair accessible taxi.

We never had any money of any significance, but we lived okay and kept the kids in school and eventually they made it to college.

We had been told that taxis from then on would be wheelchair accessible and I was chuffed with my new vehicle and the fact that my taxi licence would provide me with some form of pension in the future. To be honest I never really believed I would get anything as a pension, but my real intention was to work the taxi until I was about 70 (I can’t really see me getting anymore time than that, and indeed I will be very lucky to ever see that age) anyway at 70 I will die, the wife can sell the taxi and get a few quid to bury me, and buy the mourners a few drinks. I expect many many mourners at my funeral, nah not really, but those who do show up will be the most closest to me. And that at least in theory was the plan. 2030 no more JohnF.

Back to today’s reality. For the last few years I’ve been experiencing various different forms of health problems that I never had before. I know you could put this down to getting older but the reality is I know they are very definitely work related, and most likely from the stress of work. There are a few issues here, I’m afraid to go to a doctor because I know they will send me to a hospital. I’m afraid to go to hospital because I’m afraid I will come out sicker than when I went in. This is the hardest part of this scenario, because If I come out sicker than when I went in, then I can’t work, and my debtors will be queuing up at my door (there’s the shame and pride thing again, echoes of colonial times, of the landlord evicting you for not paying your rent).The easiest part of this would be to go to hospital and die, as then my debts liability will die with me.

The real facts here are, I can not afford to get sick; I can afford to die, but not get sick.

This is 2009 in a capital city in a country that is part of the European Union, an ambitious project to get harmonisation within Europe. And my part in this project is that I can afford to die, and my crime for this sentence was, I bought a taxi, it’s not really a crime, but it is criminal the way taxi drivers of this state are being treated by the Irish Government.

We made investments based on the then official Government position that entry to the taxi industry was limited. We knew that could change but nobody envisaged the situation we have today. We made rational business decisions and some of us borrowed heavily to fund these investments. Some of us are still repaying these loans. I had to borrow another thirty thousand euro to fund the purchase of a new car and a new taxi licence because my less than 6 years old wheelchair accessible taxi was beyond repair.

I had two options 1 buy a new wheelchair accessible taxi and use my old taxi licence, or 2 buy a saloon car and get a new taxi licence at a cost of €6300 from the government. I was told that I could not change the status of my old licence from a wheelchair accessible taxi to a normal saloon car, even as a gesture of goodwill (I felt they might take into account that

I had already financed a wheelchair accessible taxi and my competitors were now coming into the industry with saloon cars worth €1000 and €6300 for a saloon licence. The new competition was coming into the industry for an investment of about €8000 in total, the vast majority of which was going to the government. My initial investment including interest was about €50,000. So there I was competing against people that had invested less than 20% of what I had invested. You could make a reasonable living at that time and as such that is what I did for a period of about two years. The wheelchair accessible taxi required repairs of approximately €10,000 in 2004, I had to borrow that money, and now I had added to the borrowings I had. I knew it would not pass the test in the next year, and I spent all of 2004 applying for 104 jobs. I got one interview, but no offers of a job. The annual test came around again in 2005, and as I had not got a job, and I could not go on the dole, I had only one option and that was to borrow the said €30,000.

Even in 2005 you could still get a living, the hours were getting longer, but at least you could get the money you needed to pay your bills. Things started to change dramatically however. Very soon huge numbers of taxis were appearing on the road. Competition was fierce, people with full time jobs were driving taxis part time, state and semi state employees were availing of opportunities to take early retirement or redundancy and driving taxis as a replacement for their jobs. The main reason for this was that because with pensions from their state employment they would not qualify for any social welfare payments, so it was a good option to buy a taxi licence and work as though you had not lost or sold your job. In particular civil and public servants at that time seemed to think it was a good idea to drive a taxi. Fire rescue workers, soldiers, teachers, local authority workers were appearing on taxi ranks all over the country.

The really big numbers coming into the industry at this time came in with huge subsidies from the government, approximately €120,000 over four years. This resulted in the numbers attracted to the industry in the thousands. No doubt this appears somewhat over exaggerated and it is definitely anecdotal. The main reason this has not been scientifically verified is the government has not admitted to this subsidy until 2008, and even then the admission was convoluted and uncommitted. In fact the spokesperson said that they did not know how many people were availing of this subsidy, which is an astonishing statement for a government employee. Personally I have confidential evidence that what I’m saying is fact, however as it’s confidential I can not make the information public. However I can generalise and what I find absolutely astounding is the amount of money per thousand subsidised taxi operators costs to the exchequer, it’s an amazing 300 million euro per year. These figures are so amazing that they seem unreasonable, but the reality is the government policy is to reduce the unemployment figures at almost any cost (so that they can claim full employment in the land of the Celtic Tiger). On the other hand, the government spokespersons statement is the true picture, the government does not know how many people have availed of this subsidy as taxi operators. We know how many of them are out there though because we have to look at them every day of the week.

We had our third protest march on 17th February 2009 where about 2000 people marched on Dail Eireann (the Irish Parliament). It was a dignified and good natured protest where many people brought their families (school mid term break is on). The contempt we received from Dail Eireann was overwhelming, only surpassed by the silence from this historic building.

Not one TD or Senator addressed the marchers in a good, bad, or indifferent manner. One MEP Mary Lou McDonell and a former TD Joe Higgins did speak in support of us, but not even one civil servant was sent out to address us. This clearly demonstrates the contempt the political classes have for ordinary citizens, and the silence speaks volumes. A much wiser head than mine once said “for evil to prosper, good people just need to say nothing”.

Considering the current financial scandals (a new scandal seems to arise every other day) and the chaos that has arisen as a result, I would think that ordinary citizens (whether there gripe is justified or not) that march on Dail Eireann deserve to be addressed by at least the spokespersons’ from each party.

2000 people marched on the Dail (Irish Parliament) and not one TV broadcast media organisation covered it. I know most of the TV broadcast media see themselves as the elite in Irish society and they see taxi drivers as insignificant, but they covered our first marches when they thought there could be trouble, but when they found out that we are reasonable, moderate thinking people, that will not tolerate any inappropriate behaviour from our marchers, they ignore us, no story there.

Well the above story is the real story and it’s affecting thousands of citizens that are currently alone with little or no support from any source, other than their families.

I find our forum on irishtaxidriversd.com is somewhat a source of support, but it is just a few individuals that have actually met that really support each other, and, specifically the female content from steph1, helps to keep the macho men on the straight and narrow. Steph1 is the only active forum member that we believe is female, she may or may not be female, but if not, she does a good job of pretending; anyway I believe she is female. The others get and give moral support anonymously (nothing wrong with that) but the macho domination of the taxi industry does not lend itself, well, to group hugging and girly type kissing that I suspect all of us could do with every now and then. I know we get all the TLC we require at home but personally I get completely fed up going home every day and when my wife asks how was your day, the answer is always the same, Crap as usual. You get depressed sitting on ranks using fuel, wearing out your engine, and wasting your time, without bringing it home with you. However it is impossible to not bring it home when every shift brings in less money, and all the while in the back of your head, the bills are piling up, and there is nothing you can do to increase your income.

I have heard and read the comments, “why don’t you shut up whinging and get another job”. The reality is the majority of taxi operators are middle aged males that can not get a different job, there are no jobs available to us, and in the current recession it is highly unlikely that we will ever work outside the taxi industry again. Most of us know that, and we are currently trying to protect our positions.

There is nothing wrong with that, the real reason for that, is, we know when our cars die, we will not work again, unless the taxi industry changes dramatically. So it’s the rest of our life on the dole for most of us unless we can change things.

Part of the reason this is a relevant issue is that most of us know that in this scenario we will end up separated and divorced and eventually prematurely dead because most blokes would rather die than get separated from their wife and children because they can not provide for them (that’s the evil pride issue again). Most Irish men would rather die than put their families through the kind of poverty the future holds for former taxi drivers. Why is this significant for married taxi drivers as opposed to those that are not married? In particular married taxi drivers can not qualify for any social welfare payment unless their wife or husband is also not employed outside the home. Thus if your spouse is working then their income excludes you from any assistance from the social welfare system which in turn means you will be evicted from your home (because you can’t pay your mortgage) the wife is sent to a homeless hostel for females and children and the husband is sent to a male homeless hostel, because the local authorities do not have local authority housing available, (at present there are 165,000 applicants waiting for local authority homes, that are not available), there are other options but you would most likely spend about six months to one year in a hostel, because the system says you are Irish, and therefore waits until you have exhausted all personal avenues available to you (i.e. you have worn out your welcome with your brother or sister, or parents, and evidence is required, before the state will really consider you eligible to the other assistance available, i.e. financial assistance to rent private properties).

The real drawback and scandal of this is, public money is then used to maintain a situation where you can not get work, because if you do, it will be most likely low paid, and every cent you earn is deducted from your rent allowance. Therefore your family ends up in a poverty trap and you remain totally reliant on the state to rear your family, (there’s that pride thing coming up again, your family is doomed to a life dependent on the state, which is the last thing any Irish person wants).

Back to today.

Jim, Crazy, Roy, and Silverbullets, comments started niggling me. How many more of us are suffering stress related illnesses as a result of our job? I suspect that it is quite substantial.

This job does not lend itself to an appropriate type of atmosphere to allow you discuss issues with your colleagues, and anyway it’s much too macho to be discussing personal issues with someone you barely know. In reality taxi operators are on their own most of the time and the odd occasion when you might meet someone you know personally usually would not allow any kind of extended conversations, as you must stay with your car especially on a taxi rank.

It also struck me that it’s the regulations that insist on an almost 100 percent attachment to your car. I’m not going to go into the regulations here, (but please accept that, as a fact, if you want to know why, email me and I’ll explain that issue).

We do not have access to Trade Unions although the regulator insists on presenting discussions with the so called representative organisations (there words not mine) as consultation with the rest of us, and is allowed by the legislature to present this as consultation with every business person that operates a taxi. The facts are, every company, (representative organisations, insurance companies, meter and roof sign installers, the taxi regulator, the government, despatch companies) attached to the taxi industry are making money from deregulation. The drivers have increased costs and the passengers have increased costs.

The political party (the Political Democrats) that advocated free market activity in an unregulated world actively promoted competition as a means to reduce costs to consumers. Well now the PDs are dead; their former leader Mary Harney is still the Minister for Health, and her open market policies in telecommunications, taxis, gas, and health, have all resulted in higher costs to the consumer. The other industries are regulated for the service providers, this serves these companies well, but the consumers are not happy. The taxi industry is regulated from the consumer’s perspective, and they are still being charged more than they should be. The financial regulator did not regulate properly and the country is chaos as a result. There is something wrong with the regulatory regime in Ireland today.

Taxi operators are treated as public servants without any of the niceties that the real public service has access to. In fact the civil and public servants earning the same kind of money we do probably have the same level of contempt from the government that we get. Of course the higher paid civil and public servants have very nice supports and money and pensions etc.

The lower civil and public servants are fodder for the cannons for the elite of Irish society.

Ordinary Citizens of Eire R.I.P.

Note: Married means legally married or a couple of life partners living as a married couple. The system treats you the same way whether your legally married or living together.

Unfair subsidies in the taxi industry.

2009-01-21T00:26:00.004Z

Something quite upsetting has come to light recently. The government has been providing subsidies to new entrants to the taxi industry in Ireland. The official position on this is that, grants of up to €1000 are available to unemployed people, and the decisions to make these grants are taken locally, and because of this local decision taking it is not possible to say how many people had been given this grant. However the grant is not the real issue, the amount of ongoing subsidies for a period of four years are the real issue.

The Back to work Enterprise Allowance is a government initiative to assist people who are long term unemployed to start a business. When this scheme was first started driving a taxi was excluded, the reason for this was that the EU did not approve of what they, term as dead weight or displacement. Dead weight is where the business would have started anyway, and displacement is where the subsidised business will drive the unsubsidised business into closure, thus replacing one unemployed person with another, and totally undermining the business that is not receiving a subsidy. Driving a taxi was excluded from the scheme because it was not viewed as a business venture that required this type of subsidy, however following the recent revelations it is now quite clear that the policy has changed and it is now available to people as a subsidy to compete against other taxi operators.

In the liberalised taxi industry today in Ireland it is almost impossible to earn a living and it's quite clear that those with the subsidies are definitely not suffering the same hardship as those of us that have invested our own money to finance our businesses. This is totally unfair.

However the really annoying part of this is the department's statement implying the grant is only a one off payment of €1000. The facts are the cost of this subsidy is about €127.000 over a four year period. If the person is approved by a Partnership company as suitable for this Allowance then the person can avail of the subsidy for four years, however. if they come directly through the department of Social Community and Family Affairs, then they get it for three years which will obviously reduce that cost by one year to about €90,000.

Below is a link to a Sunday Times article and a quote from the article with the departments comments.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article5489474.ece

This is the quote:
"Fergus O'Dowd, a Fine Gael TD, has questioned why the Department of Social and Family Affairs is giving grants to unemployed people to set up as taxi drivers. "I do not think this is equitable or fair in a contracting market," O'Dowd has told an Oireachtas transport committee hearing.
The department confirmed that a Back to Work Enterprise Allowance is available to help jobless people set up a business, including a €1,000 grant. It said that because such projects are approved locally, no statistics are available on the number of taxi drivers who have benefited."
Anecdotally it is estimated that there are a minimum of 1000 taxi operators around the country on Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. If this was only 100 then the annual cost of this subsidy is about 30 million euro. If it is 1000 drivers, then its 300 million euro. In an industry where investments are being wiped out because of oversupply, this is an absolute disgrace, where the government is taking an active part in undermining legitimate business operators. In fairness to the Government I'd almost bet they do not know about this.

A full breakdown of the subsidy is here in the table below.

Thats approximately €127,ooo per competitor.

This is not the whole picture. There are other issues. For instance, if, you, as a taxi driver that invested your own money are living in a local authority home, you would be paying anywhere between €150 and up to €300 rent per week. Your next door neighbour qualifies for the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance scheme and they pay rent based on their social welfare income only which is about €30 per week. The obvious benefits of having a medical card do not need to be explained.

One other issue that is annoying me personally is the government's refusal to stop issuing taxi licences. Apart from the obvious, that I earn my living from driving a taxi and I do not want any more competition from any source there are real issues that make this unfair on new entrants to the industry.

There are lots of people losing their jobs in the last year and most of them are now looking at driving a taxi as a way to prevent themselves being unemployed, and that's a very honourable aspiration to hold. However most of these people seem to think that the streets are paved with gold if you drive a taxi, the government however know that this market is vastly over supplied and yet they are still taking €6300.00 from them for issuing a licence that is not worth the paper it's written on. The really unfair part of this is that the people do not understand that if they are made redundant and they become self employed then after a period of twelve months (depending on the time of the year they actually start) they then are not entitled to any form of welfare payment unless they scrap the car and surrender the taxi licence (with no refund of any money) to the taxi regulator. Even then, they have to satisfy a means test and if their spouse has any kind of a reasonable income. then they will be excluded from any welfare payment whatsoever. The government has an absolute responsibility to clearly tell them the truth about the industry and only then if they still want to take the gamble then so be it, they will have taken that decision in the full knowledge of their situation, and the result is on their shoulders at that point. The other thing they do by becoming self employed taxi drivers is exclude themselves from participating in any kind of state sponsored training or educational schemes as these are only available to unemployed people.

The government really needs to deal with these issues urgently and in an open and honest manner.

Regards

John Fitzpatrick

Taxi regulator from a different perspective.

2008-10-22T00:07:00.000+01:00

An open communication to Mr Gerry Ryan, RTE2FM.

A parsed and analysed version of your interview with Ms Doyle from a taxi operators perspective.

BTW well done on getting the interview no one else can seem to do it.

Gerry the taxi industry is not deregulated. Not everybody who wants to have a go can have a go and where price is regulated then it is not the free market forces that apply. Note Ms Doyle called it liberalisation not deregulation. She would not give a personal opinion.

She is still undertaking an economic review, I thought she did that and gave an 8% increase as a result.

In terms of public transport she acknowledges that we are very important, we could do with more at 2 and 3 in the morning, is she for real?

Ms Doyle acknowledges that we are working longer hours to make a living, so her answer is to promote the use of taxies, instead of drink driving, people who drink and drive don’t give 2 shits about using taxies and they display their contempt and anarchy by continuing to drink and drive, can you imagine getting to drive them home because they can’t drive their car, they would see you as the problem they are not allowed drive under the influence, and all you’d get would be abuse.

Standards for cars mean that the Prius is suitable for four adult passengers, I don’t think so. The PASSAT AVENSIS and OCTAVIA are the future don’t think so.

Yearly suitability test, don,t think so, what will happen is certain models will be deemed as suitable and the rest won’t, more money for the NCT to annually test for suitability, if its suitable at first then once it passes the roadworthiness test at NCT then that’s it, it’s a taxi.

Gerry asked can anybody own a taxi; the answer is yes, even if you do not have a driving licence, or was convicted of murdering your 7 children, and their mother, grand mother and nanny. The TR will take money off anybody. Driving it as a taxi is a different issue. The tax clearance is very important, but the fact that you are a convicted mass murderer is of no importance whatsoever.

The driver’s knowledge when I took the SPSV test in the carriage office was deemed to be 80% working the meter correctly, and the rest was knowing the routes. If you can work a meter in Drogheda then you can work a meter anywhere in Ireland. Route knowledge is basically learned off by hard and you have companies that will train you in route knowledge.

The new driver skills development will use manual handling and lifting for a transport industry that does not get paid for carrying goods that require handling. Health and Safety (this should be good), Ger Deering threatened to make us all write safety statements which we are all obliged to, under health and safety legislation, until I sent him my safety statement, that said I would not let anyone into my taxi after 8 o’clock in the evening as they were inevitably intoxicated. He backed off, I wonder how Ms Doyle proposes to deal with that issue. Extra little tips me arse, if she has any tips I don’t know, I’d appreciate them now PLEASE.

Ms Doyle said she is representing hackneys, taxis and limousines, that’s not what Ger Deering said; he only represented consumers according to him. In fairness she did advocate passengers taking the first car on the rank, and she seemed genuinely concerned that passengers would take into consideration that the first ranked car was waiting the longest, Its always been the rule that passengers could take any car from the rank. “he could say I’ll give a discount", NO HE CANT, THE GARDAI COULD ARREST HIM AND CHARGE HIM WITH SOLICITING, a law which has not been rescinded.

I was quite disturbed that a woman kept referring to taxi operators as him and he, only the very odd time did she say he or she in referring to taxi operators. I know that seems a bit PC, but if a man did that there would be blue murder, a substantial number of taxi operators are female. Referring to a multi cultural society that does not include females seems to be a contradiction for somebody trying to be PC in terms of culture and nationality, but not in terms of gender????????????????????

It’s a big engineering project to provide taxi ranks around the country, just painting taxi on the ground where the public are does not require a big engineering project.

That’s it then debate over we now know there are 19351 and1588(wheelchair accessible) taxies in Ireland, thanks to Gerry Ryan because no one else could find that figure out, still don’t know how many are operating in Dublin though, for the TRs purpose they could all be working in Dublin and it would appear they are.

Complaints: Overcharging can be very subjective depends on traffic conditions etc, but complaints about a booking not showing up is a complaint about a despatch company, not a taxi operator, and under Ms Doyle’s current regulations she has no jurisdiction over despatch operators and could not entertain that type of complaint.

She talks about a booking job with the current €2 pick up and Gerry asks if he is entitled to say he is not paying what is on the meter. She says the driver is entitled to tell you to get out of the vehicle, as I understand things if you show up for a booking they are entitled to pay you at the initial charge and the pick up fee, and if not they are committing a criminal act, same as robbing something in a shop.

(Gerry RYAN)“Are they entitled to lock the car, (Ms Doyle) not necessarily, does that imply there are times when we can lock people into the car? They have local Gardai phone numbers in their mobile phones (yeah right) and if they did ring they would be done for using a mobile while driving, jaysssusssss pleeeeze give me patience.

The job to Greystones as discussed did not say where the person was, i.e. if she was in Balbriggan then the taxi operator could refuse to take her because it’s more then 30 kilometers. The regulations say you must have the meter on even if you’re doing a job with a waiver. I understand that waivers can only be fixed in advance of the journey; I do not take that to mean you can negotiate at a rank. The taxi operator can decline a job over thirty kilometres, but as for negotiating a price at a rank I don’t think so, the taxi operator behind might well be willing to take a job over 30 kilometers and if the taxi operator in front of you can negotiate and charge whatever, then why do we have a national taximeter area? There’s no logic to that one.

Also I’ve never even seen a waiver form.

Ms Doyle “You know the taxi is for hire because the light is on” not necessarily, and I’m with one of Ms Doyle’s favourites, the despatch companies, when I get a job my roof light stays on until I get to the pick up point and the allotted time is reached as my roof light is connected to my meter (advocated by the TRs office) and if I turned off my light when I got a job I would be overcharging the passengers.

The Kesh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ms Doyle “ Dublin airport has put in a situation where they do not have to go back through the holding area” sorry only if you stay on the DAA grounds, i.e., the hotels on the airport itself, the hire car areas in the short term car park, and the long term car park that’s owned by DAA. Lets be real, this is only to serve DAAs customers that can not get the bus to the long term car park because the bus is not running, usually at 4 in the morning. BTW the reason the kesh is called the KESH is because when you go into it, you can not come out until the relevant authority lets you out. It’s not an affectionate name as seems to be implied by Ms Doyle. "They’d all know the flights coming in and would have a good idea how long they will be waiting", NO THEY DON,T. If you get a job outside the airport grounds I.E. BOROIMHE IN SWORDS, or even the Airside retail park, then you must go back through the KESH.

The second last point by Ms Doyle refers back to the driver skills development course (personally I object to that term driver, I am a small business owner operator, manager, financial controller, and general dogsbody, in all aspects of operating a small business. I wish the TRs office would stop denigrating us as mere drivers) anyway she did not tell Gerry that only new applicants in 2009 will have to undertake that course and older taxi operators have a moratorium on when they will have to have done the training, and she did not say who will have to pay for it, and who will be qualified to provide this training.

The taxi rental company is under no obligation to do anything, it’s the actual driver that has all the responsibility, i.e. if a rented taxi was in a crash and it was found to have faulty brakes, then the driver is prosecuted, not the owner.

The enforcement team are well known around the country, again, I don’t think so, and where does any organisation in this day and age get off with having staff with titles such as enforcement anything, the Gardai don’t call themselves that. We live in a modern democracy in the heart of the European Union, a grouping of countries that does not have enforcers of any kind.

Anyway that’s my lot on this subject other than to say my complaint to the Petition committee of the EU has been accepted and they will now assess whether or not the Irish Commission for Taxi Regulation is operating fairly on behalf of all the small business operators in the taxi industry.

The details are as follows:

“Dear John, I have been informed by the secretariat that your requests have been registered as Petition N° 1462-08.”

We’ll see what happens next.

One curious thought I had during the interview was, why didn’t Ms Doyle tell Gerry that the commission was being reined back into the Department of Transport, and also why Gerry did not ask her about that, because the implications for the Commission for Taxi Regulation are, their days are numbered. We will have the Gardai back as the sole custodians of taxi operators, with a small number of civil servants looking after licencing issues as it should be.

Letter to Liveline

2008-10-13T22:12:00.000+01:00

Joe with reference to Mondays discussions about taxi fares it's clear that you have exposed a serious flaw in the current regime of regulating taxies.

The most significant point raised is the fact the so called unions are not actually trade unions and that they speak for what is clearly a minority of taxi operators. They did not have a ballot of their members to see if they would accept an 8% increase in fares.

The regulator presents consultations with these organisations as consultation with the industry, yet using Tommy Gorman's figures and what I know about SIPTUs numbers I can assure you in total, all the so called representative organisations can make claim to speak for is less than 20% of taxi operators.

The issue here is they did not consult with their members on the increase. The reason for this is, they are not trade unions; they are private companies that do whatever they want and then somehow try to present it as a full democratic trade union activity.

As a former member of both NTDU and SIPTU I can assure you that I have never attended an AGM or EGM that was ran along normal trade union structures, no formal notifications for elections of officers etc, no independent tellers or scrutinisers, and no independent observers. In fact the last AGM I attended I was told my nomination to the executive committee was not allowed because I had proposed myself and I did not have a second proposer. The reason for that is, there is no branch structure and I did not know any other members to ask them to second my nomination. With no branch structure and no regular meetings, how would anybody know who is a member and who is not!!!!

There was much talk about 42,000 letters, I did not get one of those and I regularly communicate with the regulators office by email and I can assure you they did not ask me if I wanted an 8% increase.

Ultimately the regulators office was clearly exposed as not consulting with the majority of taxi operators.

Regulations should involve working smarter not harder, and in this case the only people paying more are the taxi operators and the passengers, this regulatory regime is only serving itself.

Another very significant point about the current regulatory regime is that it finances its salaries and running costs from the issue of licences and also from the fines it can impose, with no independent appeals system unless you take it through the courts.

Regards

John Fitzpatrick

Petition to the EU.

2008-09-26T22:14:00.002+01:00

Taxi operators are subject to the harshest regulatory regime that I have ever seen.

Some of the issues that are causing me great concern are as follows:

There are not enough taxi stand places to cater for all the taxies in Ireland. An anecdotal examination of taxi stands reveals that about 10 percent of taxies are catered for. In this event taxi operators are being fined by the police for queuing to get on to the taxi stands.

If we are parked on the side of the road and a person asks us to take them somewhere then we are in breach of an offence that carries a two hundred and fifty euro fine.

The regulators office refuses to give a detailed clear unambiguous version of the rules they are enforcing.

The regulators office is being financed by these fines resulting in a system of underhanded practices to find operators guilty of fairly trivial matters such as having the outside of the car being dirty. The regulators office says this is dependent on the weather conditions, however if you drive on a country road with building works on it, you can expect that the car would be muddy on the outside even if its not raining. The operator has no choice but to take this route if the passenger requires it. This would then necessitate the operator to stop working, go to a car wash and then go back to work. The number of car washes available in Ireland are quite limited and the time it may take to get to one and then pay for the use of the machine would most likely mean the money from the job is used in fuel and the machine. This is a completely unreasonable waste of time and money and will most likely result in passengers being discommoded unnecessarily.

If the car is in a slight state of repair (again subject to the regulators opinion). Let’s say the car is in a car park, and another car bumps off it and cracks the bumper. The driver that caused the bump drives off and leaves the taxi with the cracked bumper. The taxi operator then gets in and drives off unknown to them the bumper is cracked. The taxi operator is found working the taxi by the regulators staff and they are now guilty of an offence, resulting in a two hundred and fifty euro fine. More importantly the taxi operator is put off the road until the cracked bumper is fixed. Then the taxi operator has to find a garage to carry out the repair, and subject to their schedule is out of work until the garage can repair the bumper. The costs will all have to be borne by the taxi operator and they can not earn any money while the car is off the road as a taxi. So from two cars having a slight bump in a car park a taxi operator could be put out of work for weeks with no access to any form of income during that period. We could possibly clam our insurance but that would mean huge increases in the cost of our insurance, and with no possibility of any reasonable chance of recovering these extra costs.

The regulators advisory commission is made up of vested interests excluding the taxi operators. One sectoral interest in the commission is some of the so called taxi unions, yet there are many more independent taxi operators than those who claim to be represented by these organisations. Using their own figures from annual reports and finances it appears that there are more than ten thousand independent taxi operators not part of these organisations, which is essentially more than 70 percent of the number of licensed taxi operators. As small businesses we can not be part of a trade union as we do not have an employer. Yet the regulator portrays this as consulting the taxi operators.

There is no competition in the taxi industry in Ireland and it is illegal to try to provide competition as it is illegal to operate outside of the regulations, and this does not allow any form of incentives to customers.

The regulator believes that every taxi operator should be as they call it affiliated to a despatch company. In reality this means that the regulator wants every taxi operator to increase their costs base by paying a despatch company every week. The average cost of this is ninety euros per week.

The regulator is using entrapment techniques to fine drivers. Where taxi operators are not on taxi ranks they ask the operator to take them somewhere. The operator agrees to take them and then after a short journey (usually about half a kilometre) they identify themselves and issue an on the spot fine for two hundred and fifty euro. They also refuse to pay the fare for the journey they have taken, so I would argue that they have not committed an offence particularly if they did not get paid. This is the full text from a report in the primary national evening newspaper today 26th September 2008 regarding entrapment techniques.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/athlone-women-fear-sex-attacks-as-town-cabbies-pull-services-1483060.html

By Cormac Murphy

Friday September 26 2008

A ROW involving taxi drivers has increased fears for the safety of young women in Athlone, where a suspected serial sex attacker remains at large.

Cabbies in the Midlands town withdrew their services last night after officials from the industry's regulator issued fines for parking outside a taxi rank.

And the drivers say they could take similar action again if they do not get assurances from the Taxi Regulator that more fines will not be issued.

This means that hundreds of young women might have to walk home tonight, heightening the risk of a further assault.

"Last night, the regulator left us with no option but to take all our cars off the road," taxi driver Derek Chambers said today.

"We had to take them off the road -- the regulator would have fined people for picking up when they were not in the rank," Mr Chambers told the Herald.

"We don't want to take cars off the road, we want people to get home safely," he added.

Mr Chambers (33), a father of one from Athlone, said the last thing taxi drivers want in the current circumstances is that young women will have to walk home alone. He said up to six drivers were issued with fines of €250 each after regulator officers posing as passengers got into their cabs.

Action

At 1.30am today, the drivers approached the officers and said they would have to take all the taxis off the road.

They then went to the local garda station to tell gardai what they were doing.

"It has never happened before," Mr Chambers said.

Drivers have not planned any action for tonight, but they will remove their cars again if there is a risk of further fines.

The rank in question is on Church Street, the Co Westmeath town's main thoroughfare, near popular nightspots Karma and Q. It only has eight parking spaces but there are between 150 and 160 taxis, Mr Chambers said.

A spokesperson for the regulator could not be contacted this morning.

Meanwhile, gardai continue to hunt for a man suspected of carrying out five separate violent attacks on young women in Athlone.

Officers even hired a criminal profiler to help them nab the perpetrator.

An incident in the Hallsbridge area of the town last Saturday was the fifth such assault in little over a year.

A woman (28) was attacked early in the morning as she walked home from a 24-hour shop. She managed to escape her assailant but revealed the man tried to rape her.

In all five cases, the man has grabbed his victims from behind as they walked alone in the town and beaten them.

The latest assault was the second in a week and it followed three unsolved attacks in the Bonavalley Bridge area of Athlone between August and October 2007.

- Cormac Murphy

The regulator has said they will not release the basis of calculating the maximum allowable fare, “for reasons of commercial sensitivity”. I am in the business and my money is paying for this report and therefore I believe I am entitled to see the report and understand the basis for reaching the charges they will allow. Every other regulated business has access to all information their regulators use to set their charges. It appears that big business is treated very differently to small business.

Taxi operators are being forced to operate at an uneconomical rate by the regulator. At the current rate you would need to have the taxi occupied for 100 percent of a ten hour shift for a five day week to earn an after tax weekly take home pay of about four hundred euros. It is impossible to have a taxi occupied one hundred percent of the time which results in taxi operators having to work much longer hours than it is safe or fair. At this point most full time taxi operators are living out of the money they paid for their cars, with no possibility of recovering their investment.

The Irish Government is subsidising new entrants to the industry using the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance sheme. This is unfair and is resulting in displacement of existing taxi operators.

I hope and trust the petition committee can see fit to investigate this issue as I feel taxi operators are being deprived of natural justice so as to satisfy the Irish government. I have no idea why the government want to have this situation as it is.

Regards

John Fitzpatrick

Taxi regulations that don,t work.

2008-09-17T22:32:00.000+01:00

I’ve decided I’m going to try to keep a record of something that happens during my days work. So I hope to add an item on a daily basis from now on.

Today 17th of September 2008 was as slow as every other day. Stopped in Temple street, got a lovely cup of tea in the shop and was standing at the car having the tea and a smoke and a man asks me to take him to Heuston station. Drop him off job was €7, heading up Blackhorse Place a young lady jumps in at the lights.

Tells me she’s in a hurry to get to the courts in Blanchardstown as she was in the wrong courts and now needed to get to the court in Blanchardstown. She told me she was due in court at 10.30 and as it was now 11.30 she was really late and could I step on it. Going up Manor Street she also told me she only had €10. I told her not to worry I’d do my best to get her to court as quick as I could.

Driving along I was trying to convince myself that I was being the Good Samaritan, but the more I thought about it, the reality was I was only doing it to get the tenner because I need the money. This has been the worst week of my career as a taxi driver and I decided the regulators methods were working. The customers were now in the driving seat and could in fact offer whatever they want to pay and you can take it or leave it. I ran the meter as I’m obliged to, but the tenner point was reached at the Esso garage just after the Halfway House. When I got her to the courts it was fifteen sixty. So there you go the regulators’ methods have reduced that job by over 33 percent.

Went back out at 17.40 to do a few hours to try to catch up. Parked on the Mater private rank behind three ambulances, spotted a taxi coming from Dorset Street pull across the road to the front of the ambulances, picked up a fare, done a uturn and gave me a dirty look when I pointed out that I was parked on the rank, (the person could not see me on the rank because of the ambulances).

His roof sign number was 2876x, I’m leaving the last digit out, but it only leaves ten possible numbers to identify him, I also would put money that it was a rented car as it was one of those white Japanese import jobs. Sat on ranks for almost 3 hours in total and got the grand total of 18 Euros. Three jobs of €6 each. This is soul destroying and I end up snapping at my wife when she phones me and tries to ask me if I would like new socks. It’s not her fault the business is so bad but she got the brunt of my anger at that point.

I decide to write a letter to the regulators telling them what’s happening. I know they won’t care but I’m going to do it, and send it to some of the papers in the hope that I can get some sort of media coverage on it, as it seems to be the only way to get anything done in this country.

Something that comes into my mind as a worrying thought is those men and women who are full time taxi operators trying to rear children and pay mortgages. I do not know how they are managing to stay afloat, and the only thing that stops me feeling worse about my own situation is the fact that I know those people are really suffering.

Below is the letter I,m sending to the regulator:

Dear Ms Doyle

I am writing this letter to implore you to address the disastrous situation that pertains to the taxi industry today. It is impossible to earn any kind of a reasonable living. As an example I have included an extract from my blog here “Went back out at 17.40 to do a few hours to try to catch up. Parked on the Mater private rank behind three ambulances, spotted a taxi coming from Dorset Street pull across the road to the front of the ambulances, picked up a fare, done a uturn and gave me a dirty look when I pointed out that I was parked on the rank, (the person could not see me on the rank because of the ambulances). His roof sign number was 2876x, I’m leaving the last digit out, but it only leaves ten possible numbers to identify him, I also would put money that it was a rented car as it was one of those white Japanese import jobs. Sat on ranks for almost 3 hours in total and got the grand total of 18 Euros. Three jobs of €6 each. This is soul destroying and I end up snapping at my wife when she phones me and tries to ask me if I would like new socks. It’s not her fault the business is so bad but she got the brunt of my anger at that point”.

I implore you to urgently address this situation as your plan to have a high class taxi service when taxi operators cannot earn a reasonable living is totally contradictory. A high quality service implies that the taxi operators can earn a good living.

It is soul destroying when you are working cruising the roads and sitting on ranks and not getting paid for it. I am no stranger to self employment as somebody that has been self employed outside of the taxi industry from 1980 to 1999, when I first bought a taxi. I know that you take the good with the bad, but these days in the taxi business there are far more bad days than good days.

Behind the politics of what is going on are human beings, ordinary people, mostly genuine hard working honest individuals that provide a high quality service even light of how hard it is to earn a crust. Most of these people have no experience in politics or organising as a workforce and the industry is so splintered that it’s the worst case of divide and conquer that I have ever witnessed. It is easy to make this happen in the taxi industry because we are almost always on our own, contrary most peoples opinions. The only people that can chat amongst themselves are the taxi operators that use the airport, the rest of us have to stay with our cars at all times. I can not try any harder as I am as you call it affiliated to a despatch company, and to use that system means I can’t even be out of the car. I must also say I pay handsomely for this affiliation. I also must point out that I have been a paid up member of two the largest taxi organisations, and I have enough experience in trade union activity to know that these organisations are actually an affiliation of trade suppliers and as such do not have the same legal standing as trade unions, and therefore I choose to be an independent taxi operator.

At this point the only people not making money from the industry are the taxi operators. All of the ancillary service providers are raking it in including the despatch operators.

I know we won’t get much sympathy from the media or the public but that does not diminish your responsibility to find a way to serve the taxi operators as well the consumers.

I personally fear that some of the taxi operators I’ve spoken to over the last few months might commit suicide, as they feel their situations are so drastic. One guy told me he might consider it as he had a big mortgage, and two children, and his logic was if he was dead the mortgage would be paid off by the insurers and his family would be better off. That’s not an unusual comment by the way; I’ve heard that one many times.

I am trying to make this emotional as that is what it’s meant to be. This is not meant to be a clear precise communication aimed at a particular audience.

I understand some of your enforcement officers have been in contact with lots of taxi operators around the country and I’m sure they will verify that the vast majority of legitimate taxi operators are very decent people just trying to earn a living.

I also believe that the problems associated with the industry are wide and varied, however there is one lesson that I’ve learned and its that a one size fits all solution is not the answer, what is appropriate to Dublin may not be appropriate to Cork or Limerick or Portlaoise, etc. Local solutions are required for local areas.

I trust you will treat this with the appropriate urgency that I believe it requires. I know the solutions to the problems in the industry in my case are from a particular perspective, that of a taxi operator, however I do not believe that any regulatory process that forces self employed business people to work for €6 per hour is a process that is working adequately.

Thanking you in advance for taking the time to read this letter and hopefully I will have achieved in putting a humane aspect on the current situation.

Regards

John Fitzpatrick

Taxi fares to increase, WHEN?

2008-09-16T20:58:00.007+01:00

I can never figure out the Irish media. I don’t know whether the report about taxi fares in today’s Irish Independent is supposed to help or confuse. The article is written as though the journalist was leaked a copy of the report, but why would anyone want to leak a report like this? I can only assume that the taxi regulators office selectively released the report to try to generate some comment on it. The fact the article does not quote Ms Doyle as being annoyed that the report was in the hands of a journalist, she instead used the opportunity to make a statement.

See the full article here;

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/taxi-users-facing-8pc-fares-hike-as-fuel-costs-rise-1476152.html

Anyway there is a serious error in the article, the fares increases were last implemented in September 2006 and that now means the Taxi Regulator is now operating outside the legal remit where they are legally required to have and implement a review every two years. Depending on your perspective the regulators office is now operating outside its own regulations. I think I will impose a five million euro fine on the office. Still either way the office is now open to legal actions by all taxi operators. I just wish I had the money to take an action because from my perspective I am now charging less than I should. If and when they get around to making the decision I am going to send them a claim to have the extra money backdated just as a normal state employee would.

The most offensive part of the article is this part:

“Ms Doyle confirmed she had commissioned expert advice on the fares issue but the findings were "commercially sensitive". She said an extensive public consultation process was also under way.
"We have not made a decision if there will be a new fare," she said. "We have issued a public-consultation document and that has asked for industry and consumers' comments on whether there should be an increase, decrease, or if fares should stay the same."
She said an advisory council to the commission -- which includes service users, industry groups, the gardai and people with disabilities -- would discuss the options before a final decision is taken.

Commercially sensitive yeah right, I paid for it so I want to know what’s in it and also what the terms of reference were appointing them.

We have not made a decision, clearly stating that she is outside the legal remit.

An advisory council that includes everybody but the taxi operators.

What I want from the taxi regulator.

2008-09-14T18:55:00.002+01:00

I’ve been away for the last two weeks in glorious Ibiza, (borrowed the money from West Cabra credit union), and came home to a storm of accusations and counter accusations of overzealous enforcement of taxi regulations by the taxi regulators enforcement and the gardai. As usual it is hard to find out what exactly the position is. Anyway my car tax expired while I was away and I now can’t go to work until I get it tomorrow. Normally I would work because the Gardai would only insist you renew it as soon as possible, however I,m not sure what powers the regulators enforcement powers are in relation to car tax. I suspect they have none, but I’m not prepared to risk an on the spot fine and an argument with the regulators office. The words “ this man was driving an unlicenced taxi in a courtroom” sounds very different to this man was driving a taxi with car tax ten days out of date. So I took the wimps option and avoided the possible conflict. So I have time to write this.

To my mind the current proposed regulations are more suitable to a taxi licencing regime that has restricted entry, where the taxi operators are making plenty of money and can easily afford regular maintenance, valeting, a car wash every day, no dents or scratches on the vehicle. The highest quality of care and appearance that money can buy is required. The reality for me is I can’t afford 8 Euros every day to have the car washed. I know there are cheaper washes sometimes, but you have drive to find them.

One of the new regulations from 2009 for all cars is as quoted below; Source page nine of the National vehicle standards document from the taxiregulator.ie.

As I understand it these issues carry on the spot fines from 2009 for all taxi operators. However they are very subjective issues and are completely open to debate. My idea of the due regard to the prevailing weather conditions might be very different to an enforcer. This means that they can give you an on the spot fine and put you off the road until you satisfy their criteria. The exterior of the vehicle shall be clean at all times. My version of that is this. It’s Friday afternoon, you get a job from Finglas rank to Blanchrdstown shopping centre via Cappagh hospital. You drive to Blanchardstown shopping centre via a back road that has almost constant roadwork’s and therefore is constantly mucky. You’re driving behind a lorry which is throwing the mud onto the car and subsequently the exterior is now dirty. Using the clean at all times criteria I now go and find a car wash in Coolmine (presumably) it takes an hour to get there and get the car washed and I pay eight Euros to ensure I am not in breach of the regulations. The job to Blanchardstown would certainly have yielded no more than 12 to 14 Euros and now I have to give 8 of that to Topaz to use their car wash. So now I end up with maybe 6 Euros for what would really be about 2 hours queuing on a rank, doing the job, and then getting the car washed. What kind of lunacy is that, and particularly when the enforcer of the regulations is paying their wages from the fines they can impose.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a taxi so dirty that it would justify this level of extreme opinion.

What exactly do these regulations set out to do, put everybody off the road!!!!! Or more likely, create a scenario where the enforcers can get their wages every week.

In the case of Trim material. I assume that’s the interior upholstery etc. Here’s the scenario. A bloke in a suit flags you (although that’s becoming a rarity) anyway, it,s raining and you can’t see that he has muddy shoes because he’s just been at a meeting on the building site around the corner. You drive him to his destination, but then you see that his shoes are full of mud when gets out. You now go and find somewhere to clean the carpet. How much is that going to cost?

What do I want from the regulator? A very large dose of common sense would help however in the absence of that here is some of what I want.

Enforcers that are not paying their wages from the fines they can impose.

A very open and independent form of appeals system.

An advisory council that has real authority and a membership list that actually represents the taxi operators and consumers in a fair and balanced way.

A council that does not include the vested interests of the despatch company owners, the so called unions, and other representatives of organisations that all have a vested interest in keeping fares down and taxi licence numbers up.

Regulators that take into account all aspects of costs both monetary and time incurred by taxi operators when calculating what maximum fare is permitted.

An open and transparent system for calculating the fares.

A regulator that actually represents taxi operators and consumers, not just consumers.

A regulator that has the power to make suggestion to the government as to how best serve the consumer and to have those suggestions acted on. For instance make all new fulltime taxies VRT and VAT free as that will keep the costs to the consumer down. Ways of working smarter not harder to maintain a high standard of service with the lowest cost to the consumer.

A regulator that has clear and unambiguous rules.

Rules that have clear understanding.

I,ll add to this over the next few weeks.

Eureka

2008-08-24T01:04:00.001+01:00

I went to work tonight 23rd August 2008 at 7pm. At 11.10 pm I had earned the grand total of €42. This was made up from 4 jobs, 3 tenners and an eight euro job. The 3 ten euro jobs each had 4 passengers so the fares were actually €7 plus the €3 in extras for the extra passengers, so they were all really short runs. One of the tenners gave me €12 and the €8 job gave me a tenner, that made the total €42.

At this point I was totally depressed and really peeved off, could not get on to a rank anywhere, had driven to the suburbs, no work there either. Bearing in mind that it,s Saturday night, and it,s not raining much, there should be work, but there’s not, because so many taxi drivers are doing the same as me. We’re all burning precious expensive fuel hoping to get a good job which at this stage is accepted as a €20 job. We used to think a €50 job was a good one, but now it’s a great job, (can’t remember the last time I got a €50 job.

My mind is running at a million miles a minute between soul destroying depression and thinking where I might get the next job. Having cruised Sandymount for street passengers with no luck, I decide to head for the greyhound racing at Shelbourne Park. When I get there the taxies are queuing on Ringsend Bridge just to get on the taxi rank on South Lotts road. I knew I was in trouble at that stage but I still headed for the city centre.

Every tenth car on the road was a private car, the rest were taxies. Dame Street, and Foster place were jammers. So I headed for the Gresham, that was worse, they were queuing just to get on the queue, to get on the rank. At that point I could not take anymore and decided to go home completely deflated and poor.

However, I got a gem of a Eureka moment at that point, (didn’t relieve the depression) but I decided I’d publish this Eureka moment on the blog. I need to say here that I do not want a fares increase; I want more work to increase my income. In my opinion the only people not making money out the current system is the taxi operators and the passengers.

By the way all the above is verifiable. I’m a customer of the largest despatch company in Ireland, the car is fitted with GPS locators, the computers in the office constantly monitor where the car is, when the meter is turned on and off, and where it’s turned on and off, so it is independtly possible verify what I’ve written.

Anyway back to the Eureka moment. The taxi regulator has to take into account all aspects of the business when deciding what fare we are allowed to charge. Part of this calculation means that the regulator has to take into account how long it takes the taxi operators to get the next job. As this time element has increased significantly, I can only conclude that we will have a substantial increase in the maximum allowable fare.

I hope when that time comes this blog may be used as evidence that this information was published publicly before the official announcement which is due any day now.

I really must get back to the blog more often.

The new Eco friendly taxi vehicle.

2008-08-15T22:28:00.002+01:00

If the current thinking in the Irish Taxi Regulators office prevails this is the only type of vehicle that will soon be operable as a taxi in Ireland.

Petition

2008-07-21T23:48:00.004+01:00

I,ve started an online petition to stop unfair subsidising the competition in the taxi industry in Ireland.

I,ll type out the reasons and post them here over the next couple of days.

Sign the petition here please;

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/unfairsubsidisingtaxies/

Security stickers are not so tamper proof

2008-07-19T01:50:00.001+01:00

Tamper proof windscreen stickers.

2008-07-03T22:04:00.003+01:00

I had to post these today 3rd of July 2008 to verify that what I am saying is the truth. Done the NCT a couple of weeks ago and could not believe my eyes when I seen the in date stickers being removed from a taxi and replaced with stickers that did not come into date for 8 more weeks. I could not ask the taxi operator to allow me photo them as he might have a problem being identified here. I on the other hand don,t care if I am identified. Anyway I passed the NCT but did not have the €125 Taxi licence renewal fee at the time so I got it today, and the upshot of it all is that I drove to Fonthill with proper stickers on the taxi, paid them €125 euro and they promptly removed my in date stickers and replaced them with stickers that come into force on the 6th July 2008.

This is the sticker that is in date today 3rd of July 2008.

This is the sticker that comes into force on the 6th of July 2008.

I am wondering if this means that I am guilty of something, or is that, I just have to have the stickers and the date does not matter? I know the regulations stipulate that if your stickers are removed for any reason, like soemone breaking your windscreen, then it is an offence to operate the taxi without the stickers. But it seems that it is not an offence if you are driving a taxi with stickers that come into force in a future date. Or then again who knows the answer to this one.

Anyway yis all know what I mean.

SPSV testing fiasco.

2008-06-12T21:02:00.003+01:00

Where,s the exit Mate?

At 15.30 today 12/6/08 I was parked outside the entrance to the kesh having a cup of tea and a smoke. I noticed a taxi pull up beside me, do a u-turn and drive back the wrong way in the one way system. I thought he was heading to the overflow queue for the kesh, but I noticed he had no airport permit on the windscreen. I wondered for a moment and then went back to my tea and smoke.

A few minutes later he came back down to where I was parked, and asked me how he could get out of the airport, as he had just dropped in the Radisson hotel but could not find his way out. I was dumbstruck, but I managed to tell him how to get out of the airport.

I wondered how somebody could qualify to drive a taxi in Ireland and yet not have the competence to follow a one way system to get out of the airport. The guy had an English accent, so I guess he must be from England. He was in one of those yellow citycabs jobs with the citycab logo on the side, so I guessed it was a rental car, but what did intrigue me, was that the roof sign had a taxi seven sticker on it. I know the plate number but I don’t know if it’s appropriate to post it here.

This is not the worst incident I’ve come across, but it’s current and therefore qualifies for the blog.

There is something seriously wrong with the Irish system for licencing SPSV drivers.

Unequal regulation

2008-06-12T01:07:00.001+01:00

The Chief Executive of Bord Gáis John Mullins is warning that he expects gas prices to keep rising over the coming years.
Mr Mullins said he wants the gas and electricity industries to adopt a united approach to helping less well off customers pay their bills.
Bord Gáis is introducing pre-payment metering later this year, in a bid to help people manage their accounts.
Mr Mullins said that because gas prices are tied in with the cost of oil, Bord Gáis has no choice but to pass on price increases to customers.

This is an article in today’s 11th June 2008 Irish Independent. It’s ironic that the spin he put’s on it is almost like he cares about the poor people of Ireland. In reality he is couching the fact that his business will charge more because of the increase in oil prices.

What is annoying about this that Gas is regulated just like the Taxi industry, however when big business decides to increase its prices, it justifies it and tells their regulator what to do. When it comes to taxies, our regulator basically dumps on us.

The moral of this story is that we need to go to court to get the same treatment as big business.

Wheelchair accessible taxies.

2008-06-06T19:30:00.007+01:00

I know this would work in Dublin, but I suspect it would work in most urban areas that have close proximity to an international airport.

Below is part of the National Radio Cabs fleet of wheelchair accessible taxies presenting for a promtional photograph. Mine is the most prominent roof sign number 2912 (since I took the photograph). Alas theres not many of these left on the road now. I think most of them have been scrapped.

click on the photo for a larger view.

Wheelchair accessible taxies are very scarce in Dublin but also in the rest of the country. They are very expensive to buy, more expensive on fuel, and the resale value is almost nil. The design that has been approved here has not proved very successful with taxi operators, and is almost a liability on your insurance when used as a taxi for foot passengers. Passengers can stand up and walk through the vehicle (and frequently they do), and on a Friday or Saturday night you can even get a group of people deciding to extend their disco dancing. If you were in a crash in this instance the consequences would be catastrophic. Serious injuries or worse to the passengers for a start. It’s most likely the driver would be charged with a criminal offence, the insurance company would most likely refuse to renew the policy, and the operator would find themselves out of work and facing criminal charges, and no chance of getting work driving while this would be hanging over their heads. If they had recently bought a wheelchair accessible taxi on a lease etc, they would still have to pay for this even though they would not be allowed to use it as a taxi. The design does not cater for all wheelchairs either, and it is impossible to secure electric wheelchairs.

All that being said people that need wheelchairs for mobility are as entitled to access a taxi in the same way as anybody else, and I believe that my proposals would go a long way to providing that service to them.

Firstly for this proposal to work we need a design that permits all wheelchair users to access the vehicle with the minimum amount of assistance, this would mean they are not reliant on anybody to travel around, preserve their personal dignity by not having to ask for others assistance, etc, no matter how willing people are.

Wheelchair users want to be as independent as they can, and anything that helps achieve this has to be a help towards full accessibility in society as a whole. The design also needs to be such that when used for passengers other than wheelchair users they are somewhat remaining seated during the journey just as though they were in a saloon car. The design also needs to be able to allow elderly and infirm people enter the vehicle with the minimum effort. That’s what the designs need to overcome and I do not think it’s an impossible problem to overcome. Anyway that’s for the engineers and designers.

The next thing we need is to encourage taxi operators to buy these vehicles. How do we do that? Will the government subsidise these vehicles? No they won’t, so what we need is a bit of innovation.

We need to ensure that an eight seater taxi is insurable at the same cost as a normal saloon. No extra loadings for extra passengers.

We need to provide other ways for these vehicles to provide an extra source of income for the owners. What I call Airport stops should be placed all over the city. These are the same as bus stops except they only go to the airport. They have fixed fares to the airport no matter how far or how near they are. The taxi operator picks up one person from one of these stops for,lets say, €5 per person. The driver then has to try figure out a route to the airport to hopefully pick up more passengers. If they are lucky they fill up the vehicle with eight passengers and get €40 for the trip. If they are not lucky, they drive to the airport and only get €5 for the trip. However when they get to the airport there would also be a separate queue for multi passenger vehicles separate to the normal taxi queue. Again it’s the driver’s choice on what queue they take their chances on.

This facility would only be available to registered wheelchair accessible taxies, and would carry serious penalties for ordinary taxies breaching these rules.

The benefits for all passengers at these stops would be a fixed fare at a much reduced rate for those that are travelling on their own, and most business people are usually on their own. A couple together would even find this service cheaper. A family of two parents and two children would probably get a taxi cheaper in the normal way running on the meter.

How would these benefit wheelchair users? This would encourage more taxi operators to buy these vehicles and as such, the more there are, the more access to them eases.

They would also be registered to a centralised phone number that all wheelchair users would ring to organise a taxi. They would be obliged to service the wheelchair work as a priority and utilising the GPS systems available only the nearest taxi would be dispatched, which means the passengers would not be left waiting too long. The government could issue wheelchair users with free travel smart cards (like the buses use) to pay the driver. This type of service could be used locally for elderly people going to the shops, mass, post office etc, and the free travel pass could be permitted to use taxies for local use, (like a local minbus service). That way no money is paid by the wheelchair or elderly passengers and the transactions would be recorded on the machine and subsequently be dealt with during the drivers tax returns. If they have done more work than their tax liability then they pay nothing to revenue, consequently if they are short they pay the balance.

I know this is just an idea but it is possible to make it work (with a political will) and I know that it would encourage taxi drivers to utilise wheelchair accessible vehicles.

Thats the idea out, now let,s hear the experts opinions please.

Just came across this website from Western Australia. They seem to be making real serious eforts here. Some of the other WA taxi regulations seem mind boggling from a taxi drivers point of view, but the accessibility issue seems to have a high place on their agenda, which should be good news for the advocacy groups.

Can,t figure out this link thing so you,ll just have to cut and paste it to read the website, thanks.

http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/taxis/15081.asp

Serpentine Avenue

2006-10-30T20:58:00.002Z


A mature driver going on the wrong side of the road at Serpentine Avenue, in a hurry to get to the shops.

An Irish taxi

2006-10-30T20:58:00.001Z

A look at the car used in the regulators dvd. He could have used a bigger car for this DVD. You would not fit a third person in between these 2 people. Also for the airport discussion he did not use Dublin Airport, I wonder why? Maybe it,s Cork airport and maybe it was used to facilitate the people in the film, if thats the reason then thats okay, but you,d still have to wonder why Dublin was not used.

I am using this video as a publicly funded project and therefore I am assuming no breach of copyright. If I am in breach of any copyright please email me via the Blog , let me know, and I will remove it immediately. I am using the video to emphasise my obvious disapproval of how the regulator is going about things. It is private and is only viewable through the blog and therefore no financial reward will accrue to me. Those who want to use this for commercial purposes should contact the regulators office or the producers.

TC Taxicab

2006-10-30T20:56:00.000Z


A look at the cartoon character called TC that is the mainstay of the Irish taxi regulators promotion. I can understand why a cartoon character was chosen as all the regulations so far have been a bit of a joke. However the likeness to my version of the 2007 taxi, the fiat 600 see the photo below is uncanny.

Taxi 2007

2006-10-30T20:55:00.000Z

This is what we will be driving as taxies in Ireland in 2007 if the the regulators fares reductions goes ahead. Click on the picture for the full size view.

Bench Marking

2006-10-30T20:54:00.000Z

In relation to the 2 years time scale of no fare increases for us.

Is the Commission applying the same principle to the staff of the commission and foregoing their benchmarking increases for the same 2 years duration. Something tells me that they will not apply the same prinicple to themselves. They will have their hands out looking for their annual benchmarking increases on the basis that they are entitled to an annual increase to cover the cost of living increases, stealth taxes, and general inflation.

Well heres news for those at the Commission, we are entitled to exactly the same conditions as you.

The Legal route

2006-10-30T20:53:00.000Z

Some people are asking why we don’t go to court on the matter. It’s simple really. None of us as individuals would have the money to seek a judicial review and then a high court action to challenge the regulators position. Even if that happened then it’s most likely that it would end up in the Supreme Court. Again none of us could afford that and as individual small businesses the rewards (even if we won the case) would be so small that no individual taxi operator could take that risk. However my legal advice is that we might be able to challenge the regulator after the new rules are implemented, using the state’s own mechanisms (like the Competition Authority). This won’t cost anything, however it’s most likely that we will get a fair hearing at that point. I know I’m clutching at straws here, but with no money for legal actions, what else can we do.

Also under the freedom of information act we will be able to get access to the regulators figures that were used to ascertain the new fares. They should be interesting. Again my legal advice is that only after the new rules are implemented will these figures have any relevance.

The Media.

2006-10-30T20:52:00.000Z

A note for those in the media that take the time to read this. A very big thank you for taking the time to read this Blog. I know it will seem a bit all over the place, but It will all link up together eventually. I write this at varying times and places and as a two fingered typist it’s taking me ages to type, but I’m getting there.

Why a Blog for this matter.

2006-10-30T20:51:00.000Z

Why did I create this Blog?

The answer is that I am fed up with the lack of information surrounding this matter. I don’t expect it to be very successful but at least I can say that I have tried my bit to get the regulator to listen to our point of view. The media will be circulated with it every time I get another bit of information to add regarding this dispute. The media may then understand why we feel a bit battered and bruised and when you look at the figures as I’ve outlined them it’s clear that the increase the regulator is putting forward just clearly does not add up as a real increase. Maybe if they understand the issue more, we might get some fair press from both the broadcast and print media. Why use a Blog as my choice of communicating with the outside world? The answer is that I am only one taxi operator with very limited resources (just like everybody else) and it’s the most efficient use of my time to use a Blog. It’s a publication and the regulator can’t say nobody told him about certain things because he knows about this Blog and if he chooses to ignore it then so be it.

As I type tonight on 11th August 2006, I note that the commission has taken out a full colour advertisement in the Evening Herald advertising the new fares. Under legislation that’s his way of informing us of the changes, well heres a bit of news for them, under legislation this is my way of informing them that we are not happy, and once published this Blog can be used as evidence in the event of any Legal actions that may be taken. While we can’t afford full colour advertisements in newspapers a Blog serves as a publication in the legal sense. The commission has been notified of this Blog and I have received an acknowledgement from the office assuring me it will be brought to the Commissioners attention. That’s was an interesting response from a member of staff. I assume that they mean the regulator i.e. Mr Deering or maybe he has promoted himself from the title of regulator to the title of Commissioner, now there’s posh, The Commissioner no less. That’s either a mistake or most probably a reflection of Mr Deerings style of management as he has proved to be most arrogant in dealing with us.

The Propoganda War.

2006-10-30T20:50:00.000Z

There has been a lot of propaganda and PR spin in relation to the dispute and it has all come from the Regulators office.

Now it’s my turn at propaganda, although having said that its propaganda, it’s actually factually correct.

There is obviously a fair amount of anymousity between the Regulator and the representative organisations resulting in two of them resigning from the Advisory council, and also with the resignation from the board of a taxi radio company of Tommy Gorman. Well, for my part I advised them not to participate in the advisory council when I discovered how it was made up. The numbers were stacked against the industry representatives from day 1. As usual I was ignored and now the result is that the regulator is now insisting that the industry representatives were significant in formulating his thinking. Well done boy’s, Round 23 to the regulator. It’s your fault for sitting at the table that now allows the regulator to say that you helped formulate his opinion. The effectiveness of the advisory council’s success being measured as a successful board, is, because we now have to wear seat belts as a result of the advisory council’s decision. That is not something we wanted and it’s still something we don’t like and resent very much.

Anyway to those who tried to participate in the advisory council on our behalf, well done for trying, because it must have been difficult trying to work with somebody who is now prepared to throw your efforts back in your face’s. At least you can hold your head up for trying honestly to deal with the council and leave it as people with your personal honour intact.

The figures don’t add up to a hill of beans and what follows are facts that can be quantified and measured.

During Mr Deerings Newstalk interview he mentioned figures supplied by the NTDU. He said that the average number of jobs from the airport was 1500 per year per individual taxi operator. His propaganda spin using this figure was to highlight the fact that if Dublin Airport Authority charged each of us €500 per year that would mean an average cost of just over 30cent per job. The implication being that, sure what are they moaning about, 30cent per job is nothing?

Well that’s his spin, here’s mine.

Using these figures of 1500 job’s per year, losing €2.50 per job (the €1.50 pick up and €1 for 2 pieces of luggage) is €3750, plus €500 for the Airport permit is now a loss of €4250 per year.

Taking the 40cent increase in the initial pick up charges that gives you €600. Take that away from the €4250 and your left with a net loss of €3650 per year.

Then take the extra five cents per kilometer that he is allowing as your source of recovering this money and you will have to drive 73,000 kilometers per year just to break even.

Only after you have driven 73,000 kilometers will you start to make any money from the Regulators so called increase. How’s that for spin Mr Deering. The sad part is that it’s a fact.

On the other hand and in the real world for those of us who only occasionally pick up in the airport the €500 permit charge would probably never pay for itself. More to the point I don’t have €500 hanging around to give the Dublin Airport Authority for the privilege of providing it’s customers with a service.

If anything they should pay us to pick up their passengers and more to the point, the rank at the airport should be treated as a public rank just like any other one. After all we all own the airport and its environs. Dublin Airport Authority only holds it in trust on behalf the Government and ultimately the citizens of this state.

In this argument it’s interesting to note that Dublin Airport Authority have not issued any public statement of their position in this matter. As I’ve said before the airport is only a tiny part of the dispute, however it’s interesting to see that Dublin Airport Authority see these charges as so lucrative and a cash cow that they won’t comment and are keeping their head’s down avoiding the flak, and hoping it will go away. Well a message to the Board of Dublin Airport Authority, IT WILL NOT GO AWAY.

Just an aside to this issue. Did you know that using the Dublin Airport authorities own figure of 3000 taxi journeys a day from the airport, 364 days per year amounts to over €7million per year. That’s worth keeping your head down for.

This is how we are treated.

2006-10-30T20:48:00.000Z

This is the bank holiday Monday around half one in the afternoon. I could not get on the Gresham rank because of the queue, so I headed for Cathedral street. This is what I found, a full taxi rank of vehicles that are not taxies. This illustrates exactly how we are treated by the authorities.I had to park on double yellow lines. Click on the photo for full size view.

More regulation issues

2006-10-30T20:47:00.000Z

Listening to Mr Deering on Newstalk on Friday with Declan Carty I think I should try to address some of the issues he spoke about.

I have to say he got a free hand to put his point of view unopposed. He was almost on the verge of having me crying for him. He sounded like he was being bullied by the taxi operators. He certainly did not address our concerns and he most certainly did not lead me to believe that he understands the depth of feelings that we feel. I’ll try to convey that depth of feeling to him now.

Firstly as taxi operators we feel extremely let down by the government on each and every matter that we have been dished up from Deregulation on. There’s that horrible word again, the one the media and the politicians love, although we know that the taxi industry was never deregulated, and now we are getting more regulations in a deregulated industry. The Taoiseach said it was not him that done it, he said it was the courts. Fianna Fail said it was not them, it was the Pds, (remember Willie ODea in Limerick). The Pds said it was not Bobby Molloy it was Seamus Brennans fault, but they told us not to worry as things would be great, the passengers would get taxies very easy, the increased competition would bring lower costs for them, and the night time demand would be satisfied, the taxi operators would make a fortune, and then we would all live happily ever after. Well any observer can see that costs have risen for both taxi operators and the passengers; you still can’t get a taxi in Dublin city centre after the pubs close. The problem was not solved and we are not living happy ever after. The government then kicked the problem to touch, by appointing a regulatory commission. The commission will not talk to individual taxi operators even though they are bringing in more regulations in this deregulated industry. Nobody is talking to us, the commission is roaring at us, using their own newly formed jargon. IS IT ANY WONDER WE ARE CONFUSED; THE FACT IS WE DO NOT KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THE COMMISSION IS SAYING.

The media sets us up as figures that its alright to hate, they ridicule us at almost every chance they get, we have no friends in the media. It,s ironic that this is the same media that is resisting regulating them at every chance they get, but they take great pleasure in ridiculing those with far less power than them to resist what we believe is fundamentally unfair.

This blog is my attempt to get fair play for us as our position has never been put in any of the broadcast or print media.

At this point in time all our trust and faith in the government, and it,s commission has broken down (probably beyond repair) and we now feel that we have to get these matters dealt with once and for all.

In essence I don’t believe we are that far apart on most things. Every taxi operator I’ve spoke to in the past few weeks is in agreement that we want to give the passengers a high quality service. This is what the commission wants. So there you go we have that much in common.

In relation to the fares I believe the taxi operators do not understand it properly, so maybe if the commission could explain jargon free how it,s going to work might help. None of us believe that we will be better off on the long runs. Certainly I can’t understand how a five cent increase per kilometer in light of the increase of fuel prices indicates any kind of a significant increase. And as to how the five cent increase per kilometer justifies the removal of the luggage charges has me baffled.

The perception of the removal of the luggage charges is bringing up questions like, "if I,m putting luggage in my boot and my back gets done in, who pays me when I’m out sick? Do I open the boot and tell an elderly lady she must pick up her own bag and put it in? Do I tell a mother with a buggy and child to put her child down and lift the buggy herself? I know the answer to those questions is no, because we would never do that, but the removal of the luggage charges implies that it’s the way we will be forced to go by the commission. Let me say again for the record, no private business has to carry goods for free, and neither should we.

I attended the public meeting held by Mr Deering in Ballymun and like many other taxi operators at that meeting came away very disillusioned. However like most of us we kept quiet and waited for the commission to bring out their proposals. We thought we were in a negotiating exercise and that somewhere there would be a compromise. We got that very wrong. We put our faith in the commission and the taxi advisory council. We got that wrong as well. Now we have to try to fight for what we believe is an erosion of our rights. We have lost all confidence in the commission and the regulator. A quick glance at the inefficient way the commission has issued the new numbers would not instil any confidence in this organisation. Again for the record I have two taxi licences in my name, an old 4 digit wheelchair accessible licence and an ordinary 5 digit saloon licence, and as of today the 8th of August 2006 I have not received any notification of their new numbers. My enquiries lead me to believe that there are substantial numbers of taxi operators that have not received notification of their new numbers.

Back to Mr Deerings interview.

He never clearly addressed the issue of future increased fuel costs. He said he can’t impose costs on us that we can’t get from the customers. Well he has said that he is going to increase the licence renewal fees, (how are we to get that back)? He did not say that we are to pay for his office and his staff. We have to pay for the commission, but the commission feels it’s morally alright to ignore those who are expected to pay for it and more than that, we should be happy to pay for it. Is it any wonder there is no confidence and mistrust between the taxi operators and the commission? He said we are private businesses and we can operate just like any other private business does, that’s correct, so why does he still treat us like we are public servants receiving money from the public purse? He said that many taxi operators had asked why they had to abide by the rules when others did not. Well again I’ll ask him to explain exactly how the enforcement is going to be employed?

He did not clearly explain his plan for a decent Accessible taxi service.

Again I know there are more issues outstanding and I’ll come back to this shortly.

Taxi Regulations issues

2006-10-30T20:43:00.000Z

All Taxi Operators

There has been a lot said by the representative organisations and the taxi commission about the airport pick up and luggage charges in relation to the taxi dispute. I do not believe that the consumers know that they have to pay Dublin Airport Authority 70 cent just to get into a taxi at the rank at Dublin Airport. In relation to the removal of luggage charges, nobody should have to carry any kind of goods free of charge. The removal of the luggage charges applies everywhere (not just the airport). This means that the taxi operator has to carry goods that are insured, but are not chargeable. That’s ridiculous.

In this instance the Commission has tried to liken taxi operators to Dublin Bus, Luas, and Iarnroid Eireann. I think they should realise that these are very large businesses in comparison to taxies, and they should also note that they are the State by another name, not private companies. In fact no private company would agree to work for nothing.

However there are a lot more issues involved in this dispute.

1) We will have to give our tax clearance certificates to the staff of a private company. This is an unprecedented imposition on any person. I don’t mind giving those details to a civil or public servant, but I object to having to give them to a private company.

2) When we fail the NCT, we can’t work and we can’t get a retest appointment for up to 3 weeks. So for that period we can’t work. We should have access to a walk in service.

3) The regulator is imposing a Dublin meter system on rural areas. When the whole country becomes a metered area, it will be illegal for those taxi drivers in rural Ireland to operate without using their meters. This will remove the flexibility that rural Ireland operates with at the moment.

4) He has not addressed the issue of passengers not wearing seat belts. If the passengers are under 17 the driver can get penalty points for not ensuring they have seat belts on. Someone else breaks the law, and the taxi driver gets a fine and penalty points. That’s not fair. We are not allowed to ask the passengers for this kind of information (and neither should we be allowed to), however we can’t be expected to read minds.

5) You could easily do a 30 kilometer job in rural Ireland that only takes 30 minutes. You could never do that in Dublin.

6) Mr Deering has constantly said that his decisions have followed a consultation process. That process consisted of a few public meetings, discussions within the Taxi advisory council, and discussions with the representative associations. He has not contacted each taxi operator to ascertain their views. Every other regulator writes to those in their respective industries, informs them of what they are thinking and holds individual meetings with each business to get their point of view. During this process each business has the opportunity to put issues relating to their position. They then implement the regulations. Sometimes the businesses are in agreement and sometimes they are not, however they are never imposed with costs that they can not recover from their customers. Mr Deering has never spoken to any taxi operator at this level as far as I know. Some people might believe that this is an onerous prospect for his office to undertake, and even if it is, that does not diminish his obligation to consult at this level. The Legal and Metrology service writes to every taxi operator outlining their obligations to have their meters changed by 16^th of October. In fact this letter goes as far as describing the penalties which includes substantial monetary fines and very substantial imprisonment terms for non compliance. The letter almost threatens that all operators have received the new numbers from the commission and that they should have their meters reprogrammed wth the new programmes. Well a big thanks to Legal and Metrology for informing me of this, because the commission has not issued me with new numbers and I have two licences to my name. It is ironic that Legal and Metrology can write to individual Taxi operators informing them of the new rules and regulations, and yet the commission is so arrogant that it feels it is not under any obligation to inform the individual taxi operators of the new regulations. So in a nutshell Mr Deering feels that individual taxi operators can get the new rules from Mystic Meg.

8) In relation to the new fares structures Mr Deering has never clearly and unambiguously spelt out how he has arrived at those figures. He has never clearly explained how a 14 kilometer job today carries a fare of approximately 18 euro, and yet with his increase it will only be 17.20 euro. Maybe he should explain that one.

9) This fare restructuring applies legally for two years. This will be enshrined in law and will not in any circumstances allow it to be reviewed. In consideration of the significant fuel increases at the moment this is absolute suicide for taxi operators. As the commission has always claimed to be here to represent the consumer, in this legal scenario, it is most likely that in the event of more significant fuel increases the commission will not be able to grant a fare increase without being sued by the consumers.

10) Taxi operators can not operate with the protection of a Limited liability company.

11) The removal of the transferability of the licence means that you can not recover any of the 6300 euro paid to Dublin City Council.

12) The commission has stated that they are going to increase the licence renewal fees in 2007. It has not said by how much and we will have no means to recover this extra cost as the fares will be set for 2 years. These increases are expected to fund the regulators office and line with the commission’s intentions to have more enforcement officers it is clear that this increase will be very substantial. 500 euro is the stated cost of renewing a lapsed licence, so I’d suggest that the new renewal fee will be somewhere around this figure.

13) The commission has never outlined how exactly it intends to police the regulations. We all know how it will happen in Dublin and the other large areas like Galway, Cork and Limerick cities, but how exactly is it going to be enforced and policed in every small town and village in rural Ireland.

14) We have a 12 week period to renew our licences. What exactly does that mean, because I can find dozens of holes in that scenario? I’ll outline one problem with this. If you’re in the process of renewing your licence and as part of this process your car fails the NCT test, for, let’s say a CV boot, the CV boot has no real relevant safety significance. However in this instance, if you were involved in an accident in a car that has failed the NCT test, the consequences are impossible to imagine, even though you are legally driving a properly licenced taxi. It’s most likely that the safest course of action in this instance is to go off the road until you pass the NCT.

15) You can only have one licence per car. Why can you not have a limousine licence and a taxi licence on the same vehicle?

16) A new register of licences. I don’t know what this means but it seems like our private information will be available unnecessarily to the general public. Paragraph 4.9 (i) talks about the transfer of ownership of a licence, I thought you will not be able to transfer a licence.

17) If you sell you car as a taxi to another taxi operator, can you then transfer the licence, or do they have to apply to the commission, pay more money, more ncts, new roof sign, meter recalibrated etc????????????

18) Who is going to pay for the training and quality assurance aspirations outlined by the commission?

There are many more issues and I will add to this over the next few days. However in the main my issues will be Dublin based if you know of any others particularly for those outside of Dublin please let me know.

In relation to the withdrawal of services dispute it might be prudent on the commission to address the concerns of all taxi operators, to all taxi operators, as it appears that many of us do not feel that we are being properly consulted with.

Email: irishtaxies@yahoo.co.uk