Low-cost hackney licences for rural areas

New, low-cost hackney licences are being proposed by the Government for use in isolated parts of the country where regular taxi drivers don’t operate.

To make the scheme more attractive, applicants would not be required to sit the skills development programme required under standard SPSV licences and a simpler vehicle standard would be used.

However, rural taxi drivers would be forbidden from working in bigger towns and local community groups or businesses would have to “validate” the need for such a licence.

Junior Transport Minister Alan Kelly says the move is aimed “at countering the rural isolation that country many people experience as they can no longer travel to pubs, community and sporting events”.

“This is a very real issue for rural communities as they don’t have access to basic taxi services. The cost of buying a taxi licence, the cost of sitting such skill tests and the low volume of business make it commercially unviable for people to operate regular hackneys in areas such as where I’m from in Waterford.”

The Vintners Federation of Ireland welcomed the proposal, with chief executive Padraig Cribben saying “the plight of rural Ireland has been the cause of much debate for some time now”.

“We feel that such a move would certainly help alleviate some of the problems of rural isolation affecting so many of the older community in rural Ireland, for whom walking to the local village is not an option for a variety of reasons,” he said.

However, the Irish Taxi Drivers Federation is “suspicious” of the new licence, which they claim “is in reality a new class of PSV licence”.

“Our fear is that it would be abused. It is a break from the norm and we will be very carefully monitoring its introduction,” president John Usher said.

Under action 46 of the Taxi Review Report, the Government has proposed to introduce the ‘local area hackney licence’ for operation in “limited areas” across the country.

Drivers would have to be resident in the rural area or village where they operate and would need approval from gardaí. However, they may be allowed establish a “hackney stand” in an off-street area where they can accept customers.

The proposal is contained in the department’s Taxi Review Report sent to the National Transport Authority this month.