Why don't Gardai arrest/remove protesting Taxi men?

AlekSmart

You do realise that if we simply employed Gardai to operate by the exact letter of the law in every case the city would come to a standstill.

I`m not sure Zambia252,that the public perception (Non Taxi Driver) of the issue would support your contention.

Most regular users of Dublin City Centre will be only too aware of the new abilities of Taxi Drivers to designate any particular location as a dei-facto Taxi Rank.

These "new" powers only came about after a trial period when Taxi Drivers "tested" the resolve of the Taxi Regulator and The Gardai to actually regulate at all.

Once it had been shown that the Taxi Regulator,The Gardai and Dublin City Council were all operating at cross-purposes to each other the flood gates opened,and have remained so.

Take,for example,the bottom of Grafton St where the Taxi fraternity have no problem queuing back along the kerb to the corner of Dame St,with scarily dangerous consequences for EVERYBODY else.

That the Taxi Drivers have an issue concerning Rank Space is beyond doubt,but that cannot excuse a continious level of dangerous parking which appears to be largely ignored by the Gardai,save for a few brave Traffic Corps members.

Indeed,the Taxi Fraternity are now sufficiently emboldened as to argue with Gardai when being instructed to move on.

The ongoing policy of observance rather than action has now left the Gardai with a lot of "Catchup" to play.

At this stage the Taxi fraternity have now faced-down the Authorities,and particularly the Gardai,on several high-profile occasions.
The Garda authorities can point to a level of success in that no unpleasantness occurred and everybody went back to normal after these events.
This of course is only partially true as each succesive protest has further emboldened the hard-core of protest leaders.

At some point,if the Regulatory Authorities do not acquiess to the Taxi Drivers demands then the Gardai will be forced to take action.

I believe that the sort of very public funk which senior Gardai allowed to pervade last week will cost them dearly when this time of action finally does arrive.

In the meantime,it`s fair to say that the Taxi Drivers are winning the war on-the-street by a country mile !

TouchingVirus

@Zambia252: I completely agree that the spirit of the law and not the letter should be applied. But to whom does the spirit of the law equate to "Traffic chaos is all right, nothing to see here, move along"?

A few more high profile stunts like that protest and people will be asking serious questions of the Gardai, for now they're being walked on and are taking it; The joe soaps know it.

Shield

I've said it before when the taxi drivers did this the last time.

All it takes is a small number of people to take a note of all the taxi plate numbers causing these problems and make them available to a Hall of Shame site of some sort.

People could have a list of taxi plate numbers not to use on their phone and in 5 seconds decide whether this was a troublesome taxi undeserving of your business, or a hard working taxi keen to earn a living.

People of Ireland - do something. Show these taxi drivers they don't own the city. Imagine word got around that the public have elected not to use just 10 taxis bearing certain plate numbers because they used their cars to block Dublin's busiest street.

If RATM can beat the X-Factor, the general public can beat the bullying tactics of those selfish taxi drivers who think they have a right to cause chaos any time they want.

I wonder if they would keep it up if it meant there was a chance they'd never get another fare again as a taxi driver?

1922

wilful obstruction, public order act

section 8 direction to leave

that how beggars are dealt with in some places since the vagrancy act went

johnnyskeleton

foinse wrote: »

Article 40.6 Bunreacht Na HÉireann



At most what you see in that video is Endangering traffic, But i have to say not being based in Dublin i couldn't tell you if endangering traffic is applicable to a light rail system, as it wouldn't be covered under the Road Traffic Acts.

We also don't get all that many protests down this side of the country, but i would imagine that once there is no Public Order offences and as long as emergency services vehicles such as seen in the video are allowed through, then the protesters are left to get on with what they're doing.

How about this one:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2002/en/act/pub/0014/sec0006.html#partii-sec6

Taxi drivers are self employed (usually) and so by coming together on foot of an agreement that has as its purpose distoring the market (i.e. preventing their competitiors from carrying out their business) they are in breach of competition law.

It would be no different to McDonalds and Burger King picketing outside Supermacs.

Would certainly send a message out.

Shield

Yeah but who's going to take the action, and would an action not have to be taken against every single person as they are self employed? Costly to the state if they all apply for legal aid!

Anyway, as pointed out earlier, this is straying more into a Legal Discussion so can we bring it back on topic please and thanks?

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

How about this one:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2002/en/act/pub/0014/sec0006.html#partii-sec6

Taxi drivers are self employed (usually) and so by coming together on foot of an agreement that has as its purpose distoring the market (i.e. preventing their competitiors from carrying out their business) they are in breach of competition law.

It would be no different to McDonalds and Burger King picketing outside Supermacs.

Would certainly send a message out.

source

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

How about this one:

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2002/en/act/pub/0014/sec0006.html#partii-sec6

Taxi drivers are self employed (usually) and so by coming together on foot of an agreement that has as its purpose distoring the market (i.e. preventing their competitiors from carrying out their business) they are in breach of competition law.

It would be no different to McDonalds and Burger King picketing outside Supermacs.

Would certainly send a message out.

Nothing to do with An Garda Siochana, i think you'll find that Gardai have no powers under that act, therefore cannot enforce anything in it. that will be left to solicitors to sort out.

Zambia

AlekSmart wrote: »

In the meantime,it`s fair to say that the Taxi Drivers are winning the war on-the-street by a country mile !

Your post is interesting. In the case mentioned it would be just my observance that in some scenarios given all the information to hand.

The senior Garda on the scene has to make a decision. it easy for us to sit here later and pick holes in it.

What I found really interesting about what you stated above is the fact its still the Gardai's job to license and deal with Taxi's. Its a topic for another thread but the more of these jobs that are handled by specialised Non garda departments the better.

AlekSmart

The senior Garda on the scene has to make a decision. it easy for us to sit here later and pick holes in it.

What I found really interesting about what you stated above is the fact its still the Gardai's job to license and deal with Taxi's. Its a topic for another thread but the more of these jobs that are handled by specialised Non garda departments the better.

I would agree on the role of the Senior Member in charge on-the-day.

That decision call has to be made with relevance to a constantly changing set of circumstances.

The Wisdom Of Solomon does`nt enter into it !

However what we saw during the Taxi protest was yet again a sensation that nobody in Authority knew what to do,with as a result,maintaining the status-quo being seen as the less confrontational approach.

I would ask if the same Senior Officer would have been half as accomodating 24 hours earlier when An T-Uachtarain Mary McAleese and the President of Timor-Leste were performing Official Ceremonies at the Garden of Rememberance.

I would suggest that our Taxi-Driving friends along with their vehicles would have been removed toute-suite with little concern for the exact Statute being quoted to allow that action.

The REAL problem,as much for the Gardai as for the General Public is that this country appears to have NO set enforcable rules for ANYTHING.

The ongoing drip-feed of highly suspect dealings in the Politico-Economic field and the continuing reluctance of Official Ireland to even nod in the direction of investigation or retribution is merely reflected in all other area`s of our daily life.

I`m not having a pop at the Gardai here,but I am pointing to a Governance issue that is not going to go away and it is in the Gardai`s own interest to see that their position is clarified rather than see individual Members left to perform the "whatever you think yourself" manouvere as they did on the infamous May Day protest rally some years back....when it was the individual Garda who ended up carrying the can for the laziness and inneficiency of the Senior Managerial ranks.

Since the arrival of the All New,singing and dancing Taxi Regulator we know that the Gardai no longer have responsibility for day to day Taxi Licencing or Regulation issues.

Indeed it`s hard to know exactly Who has any more as the pass-the-parcel game will begin as soon as any really meaty issue is uncovered.

The Garda Carriage Office,once the absolute arbiter of all things Taxi regulatory,is now a much slimmer operation with no extra resources to deal even with the day to day problems presented by a hugely expanded Taxi-parc.

However this "war" that I refer to earlier is being waged on the streets and the battles are simple ones concerning the validity of Double Yellow Lines,Continious White Lines,Traffic Signs,Traffic Signals all of which are being openly disregarded on the Major Streets of the Capital City,often with Gardai looking on in a bemused state largely due to the sheer impossibility of that single member being able to do anything when faced down by a gaggle of 15-20 voluble Taxi Drivers......self preservation dictates that Garda simple leaves the field to return another time.

Apart from that the Taxi Business is doing just fine...

AlekSmart

AlekSmart wrote: »

Since the arrival of the All New,singing and dancing Taxi Regulator we know that the Gardai no longer have responsibility for day to day Taxi Licencing or Regulation issues.


However this "war" that I refer to earlier is being waged on the streets and the battles are simple ones concerning the validity of Double Yellow Lines,Continious White Lines,Traffic Signs,Traffic Signals all of which are being openly disregarded on the Major Streets of the Capital City,often with Gardai looking on in a bemused state largely due to the sheer impossibility of that single member being able to do anything when faced down by a gaggle of 15-20 voluble Taxi Drivers......self preservation dictates that Garda simple leaves the field to return another time.

Care to expand on these two comments?

Locust

AlekSmart wrote: »

Since the arrival of the All New,singing and dancing Taxi Regulator we know that the Gardai no longer have responsibility for day to day Taxi Licencing or Regulation issues.

Fair enough that the Taxi Regulator - Regulates the industry and even check taxis etc... but the Gardai still very much enforce taxi regulations they are a much bigger gang. I personally know many Gardai who deal with taxi drivers regularly - checking things are in order etc and dealing with them appropriately if they aren't.
To say Gardai no longer have responsibility for taxi licensing or regulation is ludicrous - if they catch someone driving a taxi that shouldn't or
are processing checks on taxi applications and something a rye crops up of course they are going to take action.

Taxi men in my area get an awful hard time from the Gardai in terms of tickets for illegal parking, bad driving etc... I'm just not sure about your broad sweeping provoking generalisations. Why just the other day i saw a young lone Garda inspecting a line of 20 or so taxis parked on the footpath, and he looked like he was dishing it out to them...

Victor

Chief--- wrote: »

I wasnt there now but..

I presume the Gardai were not going to wade in in numbers and use force on these people to arrest them for obstructing traffic.

You can be sure senior Gardai were engaging with the leaders of the protest and also with the Taxi Regulator going from side to side trying to resolve the situation.

The protestors gathered, protested and left.

Some people were delayed and have a right to be pissed off.

No arrests, no court cases, no ombudsman cases and no injuries.

Handled well in my opinion.

But the lives of 100,000+ people were disrupted.

A human protest is one thing, bringing their (licenced) vehicles is another matter.

psni wrote: »

I've said it before when the taxi drivers did this the last time.

All it takes is a small number of people to take a note of all the taxi plate numbers causing these problems and make them available to a Hall of Shame site of some sort.

You forget about the defamation possibilities.

Shield

Victor wrote: »

You forget about the defamation possibilities.

There wouldn't be anything defamatory about stating "These taxis blocked the streets of Dublin on X date at X location between X and Y o'clock, and here are the photographs/youtube links to prove it".

A statement of fact is not defamation.