Do you want this man anywhere near the controls?

gandalf

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon

Alright then, take the example of the mobile phone licences. The government holds an auction to sell off a limited number of mobile phone licences. Telecoms companies spend billions to purchase these licences. The next day, the government announces that the market is completely deregulated and no one needs a licence anymore. Is that fair?

Except the mobile phone companies did not create a feeding frenzy by selling the licenses between themselves and inflating the price from its legal cost.

How much was a Taxi Plate from the Carraige Office £5000, £10000. How much did Taxi-Drivers inflate the price by ten times that, twenty !

Give me a break. They do not deserve a penny, they were greedy and lost. Next thing you'll tell me if the housing market goes bang all the new home owners should be compensated because they "lost out".

Gandalf.

Biffa Bacon

Originally posted by gandalf
Biffa I'm assuming that you have an interest connected with the Taxi Drivers.

I don't actually, I just believe fair's fair.

Niallmac

Biffa

I agree that the taxi were slightly hard done by in the deregulation. However I would not give them compensation as when they sell on their plates they will get capital gains tax breaks which will in turn act as a form of compensation. I would not under any circumstance agree with refunding money to them as compensation. Similarly I would not compensate anyone who bought eircom shares and lost. The taxi driver must have realised that the taxi situation in Dublin was ridiculous, that is why they paid so much money for the plate in the first place. They must also have known that sooner or later something would have to be done about this. So they did take a gamble, but they lost. Haveing said that only the people who bought in the last five years or so lost out, and alot of people who bought in that time frame were investors who rented the plates out and they would definitely have been aware of the risks involved.

infinity

he must never be the Taoiseach, together we can make that happen;)

bonkey

Originally posted by Biffa Bacon
They deregulated because the courts told them to.

The PDs wanted to increase taxi plates - something which FF had been staunchly against. Eventually they managed to get 2700 new plates introduced. However, this caused problems with the taxi cartel, who proceded to bend FF over a barrel, citing the usual "loss of business" "destroying the finances of those already in the game" and "poor, poor taxi drivers" (not to mention "strike"), it was decided that these should only be issued to either holders of existing taxi licenses (2200 of the 2700), or those who could show they were cab-sharing with a license-owner (another 500). In short, the taxi drivers forced the government to ensure that the introduction of large numbers of new plates would not result in a breaking of hte cartel.

End result - some hackneys who were refused a license brought the government to court. The High Court decided that the government did not have the right to predetermine who the licenses could be given to. They did not force the government into complete deregulation. All they said was that the new licenses had to be given out in an impartial manner.

The existing cartel refused to accept this and tried stonewalling. This is what led to complete deregulation.

I just believe fair's fair.

Taken from the Front Page of the Irish Times, dated November 18th, 2000.

The general secretary of the National Taxi Drivers' Union, Mr Tommy Gorman, said that if the new orders contained nothing to satisfy the drivers, they would not go bankrupt but would take out an injunction against the Government.

"We have never sought compensation but we wanted a situation in place where we could work with Minister Molloy and the local authorities and keep people in jobs, as well as giving a proper service to the public. He never consulted us on this," said Mr Gorman. He added that protests would be considered.

Now - if I understand this, Mr. Gorman is saying that the taxi drivers did not ask for compensation. Their objections to the deregulation was not about the loss of value of their plates.

So - if the taxi drivers Union were not asking for compensation while the deregulation was being introduced I think its a bit rich to be saying 14 months later that we should have given it to them out of "fairness".

Was it "fairness" that had Gorman saying that deregulation would give us a loss fo jobs and worse service? Let me get this straight - deregulation would mean that the market could find its sustainable level. Gorman is implying that this sustainable level would result in a worse situation than November 2000 - which effectively means fewer taxis would be on the road.

So, in effect, he is arguing that when deregulation was happening there were already too many taxis on the road, and that deregulation was going to suddenly force many of them off the road.

These are the excuses the people who want to be paid for their plates were offering. Only when they realised the public had an IQ above 10 and wasnt buying any of it did their story change to "oh, our poor investments. Please pay us back for the over-inflated prices we paid some other taxi-drivers for our plates".

jc

Victor

Oh, BTW, they can still write of the £70,000 of so they were paying for the licences on the (black?) market as business expenses. Of course if they were deliberately paying large amounts of under the counter cash to avoid tax - that is their problem.