Taxi reforms may be linked to compensation claims following deregulation

FURTHER reform of the taxi industry may be linked to up-coming compensation claims arising from deregulation, it emerged last night.

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan will next week take delivery of a report from a special three-member hardship panel which has assessed more than 2,000 compensation claims arising from the decision in 2001 to issue a large number of taxi plates.

Unions representing the drivers say the move left taxi operators and their families at a loss of some 375 million euro in the value of their plates which many people had bought in the years prior to deregulation for sums of up to 100,000 euro each.