Taxi driver charged two Christmas shoppers €47 for €15 fare

A Dublin taxi driver has been ordered to pay €1,050 for overcharging two Christmas shoppers who had to hand over €47 for a €15 fare.

Seamus Goslin, aged 70, from Balfe Rd, Walkinstown, pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court yesterday to breaching the Taxi Regulation Act after he triple-charged the passengers.

Stephen Ryan, a compliance officer with the National Transport Authority, told Judge John O’Neill that , last December, two customers had used the Hailo app to get a taxi from the city centre to Barrow St after they had been shopping at Smyths toy store.

Goslin picked up the man and woman with their boxes of toys at Jervis St, close to the shop, and took them to a company office at Barrow St.

Mr Ryan said he gave them two receipts, one for €17 and another signed one for €47, which Goslin claimed included a “carriage charge” for the boxes the two passengers brought with them. He told the NTA officer it was a “courier job”. He also claimed it was just before Christmas and a “very busy time”.

Mr Ryan said that, in the past, taxis were allowed a “luggage charge, but that is gone”.

He carried out “two test runs” of the same route and found the fare should have come to about €15.

Judge O’Neill ordered Goslin to pay €250 to the Simon Community, along with €800 in prosecution costs.