Taxi Hardship Fund

pro_gnostic_8

Did I read this right? Maybe I was having a nightmare and it was after all just another urban legend.

How can the Givernment justify the proposed payment of an average 25,000 Euro to each taxi-plate holder as "compensation" for de-regulation. In a time of across-the-board cutbacks, this payment (in excess of a total of 50 million) deducted from the public purse is an obscenity. Surely there are more deserving recipients of such largesse.

Why have they done this??? It's not as if there is widespread public agitation in demand of such a substantial award.

mike65

There is no earthly reason to compensate taxi-plate owners
for loss of income, they thought they had a closed-shop
for eternity and they were wrong!.

A special case hardship fund might have merit though but only for those who can prove they absolutly need money to say, avoid
loosing thier home (also they must have 10 kids and a sick cat!).

But then again business people go bust everyday of the week and some loose thier homes so maybe not, except the local authority waiting lists are very long and you have to live somewhere...

Mike.

pro_gnostic_8

Too right there, mate. All other businessmen whose ventures went bust get nothing while the taximen who still have a viable business get serious money to "compensate" for some extra competion in their trade. Madness.
Also, doesn't this set a dangerous precedent? In the near future the licensed trade will also be de-regulated. Surely publicans will now be entitled to compensation also. And in retrospect, the haulage business was de-regulated some time back....... can we now expect a raft of compensation claims from truck owners?

article6

Taxi deregulation was definitely the best thing the PDs did.

The whole business was stagnant, no growth whatsoever, thanks to the huge payments necessary just to carry people around in your car. And then comes sensible right-wing economics. It's a little unfair to the taxi owners who paid the sums, but I guess life is unfair.

They shouldn't be compensated just because they made a bad decision. As has been said, there are more deserving causes than a guy who still has his very profitable business, for example, the old, the sick, and the handicappedTM.

gurramok

I wish the gov would compensate me for the rip-off insurance i had to pay for my car

No-no to compensation for taxi-drivers...another cartel on the rocks:)

Quigs Snr

Ignorance is bliss kiddies.

I've experienced this up close and personal.

in the early 80's plates were bought for a couple of hundred. In Waterford that was 39 plates. There remained 39 cabs in Waterford right up till deregulation.

The Government created this cartel, owners who mostly didn't work the cars themselves but got a driver to do it for 1/3 the takings have made a killing over the past 20 years. Flaunting the tax system in process. I think deregulation is a good thing as I was well sick of having to walk 3 miles home on a saturday night with a bellyfull of beer in me due to lack of said taxis'.

So now that it's out of the way, majority of taxi plate owners, have no case, made too much money already and paid less tax than the rest of us in the process. Its also easier to get a cab in theory now.

However, My dad after a few years on working for others, decided to bite the bullet, mortgage off the house and invest in a plate. This was 9 months before deregulation, the plate cost 75,000.

People should not assume that this was a gamble. They had assurances. After 2 years of ongoing meetings with the local city council, it had been agreed that more taxis were needed (the taximen themselves raised this point), a plan was approved and signed off for 15 extra taxi licences to be issued and then more in a controlled fashion after a review period. Priority would be given to registered PSV license holders who were declared for tax and driving cabs for someone else, but who DID NOT own a cab themselves. This seemed fair and was signed off.

In addition, in the instance of divorces involving taximen in the courts, the value of the plate was taken and divided between spouses. If My father was to leave his plate to me, I would have had to pay inheritance/capital gains tax on it. The courts, and by implication, the state recognised a taxi plate as a tangiable asset. This was wrong, but this was the way things were.

Since deregulation, a lot of the guys who bought their plates for nothing and made their money have lost a nice nest egg. My dad will lose the house if he fails to make the repayments. Revenue has dropped since then, also he cannot get someone to drive for him a few nights a week as there are no drivers to be had, they all have their own plates, and even though the drivers cut is now up to 50% they still can't make enough with the smaller revenue now out there. Effectivley he is in his 50's and has to work every day for the next 15 years for 16 hours a day, or risk losing the house. This is not being melodramatic and there is no possibility of holidays.

With more cabs on the road premiums have gone up from around 3000 to 7500 for some reason as the insurance companies as usual cash in.

Now remember, he bought the plate 9 months before deregulation, if there was a chance that this was a risk do you think the local corporation should have warned him of this when he paid them 3000 punts transferral fee of the plate ? Did they ****. Effectivley, he cannot take a holiday. His health is already failing due to overwork and stress.

The goverment has tried to make the market more competitive, but in effect it has made it less so for exisiting drivers. A driver who bought a plate 9 months after my dads, paid 5000, all other expenses remain the same, that guy can go out, after the nightclubs etc.... work 3 nights a week and still make more than my dad, taking into account my dads repayments.

I would also like to add that since my dad went into business as a taximan, his taxes have been paid 100% above board, he has done it all kosher and is still being shafted.

He SHOULD get some form of compensation. I think what they should do is take the pay whats left of the loan off (except for the 5k the plate is worth) and leave it at that. If you had to live the reality of what this is doing to my family you would agree. It's easy to pontificate from a distance.

By the way, not every plate holder will be compensated. Only those who applied to the taxi hardship panel. According to the papers this was 2000 drivers. (Of which many will be weeded out, the only ones who should be considered are those who bought plates recently, and have effectivley been disenfranchised by the government, which is by the way, against our constitution, there is enough evidence too to suggest that the government effectley approved of and maintained this cartel we speak of, so for them to suggest it was a false economy would be laughed at).

I have it on good authority, that in fact only 169 drivers applied for hardship. The reason being that when you do so you have to declare your earning and prove how you are enduring hardship. Most drivers use creative accountants who make their earnings look much smaller to avoid major taxation. Trouble is now, that since deregulation, their earnings will not have changed from a tax perspective. Most of them have been cheating the system and they could not make their earnings look any smaller. SO it looks like they have lost nothing. The government knew this when they set this panel up.

Thankfully as I said already, my dad and anyone like him who were honest (and unlucky) can prove that they have been affected. Can prove that they must now flaunt european law, working twice the average hours per week or more, and take no holidays just to save the family home for his wife and children.

By the way this mail is not anti deregulation, it was a good thing for us. But a few people were unfairly treated in the process. Not too many though.

Quigs Snr

..............and if the government would compensate all us young lads for the insurance we have paid, we wouldn't de driving, we'd be flying private jets !

pro_gnostic_8

I take on board your comments. My heart goes out to your Dad, its an awful situation to be in.

However

Originally posted by Quigs Snr
Now remember, he bought the plate 9 months before deregulation, if there was a chance that this was a risk do you think the local corporation should have warned him of this when he paid them 3000 punts transferral fee of the plate ? Did they ****.

this is a case of caveat emptor -- buyer beware. Waterford Corporation as a Licensing Authority is no different to any other licensing Authority (Fisheries Board, Motor Tax, etc) in that they simply operate the system in place. It is not the remit of Wat Corp to "warn" any members of the public in regard to possible future changes in regulations.

Now, it has to be said that there were distinct runblings about change even twelve months before the Government de-regulation. Why is it that long-time taximen rushed to sell their plates. A lot of people knew it was on the way.

Can I ask, why didn't your Dad buy a Hackney plate (only £500) and dip his toe in the PSV trade this way first? Mortgaging a family home to fund a business venture is always a risky bet no matter what the business may be.

Quigs Snr

Well it s bummer of the situation. In fairness there were rumblings for about 7 or 8 years, mostly in the evening Herald around Christmas time.

You are factually incorrect about long time taximen selling on that basis though. No-one expected what was coming and certainley in this neck of the woods only 2 plates had come up for sale that year (which is about normal), I think you will find that at the beginning of 2000 house prices were flying, the economy was booming, everything was rising in price. Taxi plates were no different. People who sold them didn't sell them because they thought deregulation was on the way, no they sold them to cash in and people bought them because they thought that the prices would keep going up (much like housing).

In addition, dunno bout Dublin, but in Waterford it's a small place, the bottom line is that hackney doesn't make much because it can't pick up from the street.

To be honest, I don't know why he bought the plate, I think it made him feel that after the 80's and 90's on the dole and gradually pulling himself back up (everything went bust with the factories here in the 80's) that he would somehow have made something of himself again, effectivley owning his own business. He was so bloody proud of himself for giving it a go, it made me sick when this happened. There are others though who have milked the system bought several houses, treated their drivers like ****e for years, drive new Land Rovers and BMW's and try to put themselves in the same bracket. It's appalling, and I genuniely hope that the handfull who have gotten a really raw deal get sorted out in some way or at least given enough of a hand not to lose the family home, I also hope that the others are told where to go.

tHE vAGGABOND

mate of mines da had a newsagent, he did not get a lotto station when they were handed out whenever it was, the local quinnsworth got it...

so he eventually lost all the casual business, people buying smokes and doing lotto to that other shower, and eventually he went out of business..

he took a risk and lost, and will be paying off debts for some time - thats business. That does not mean he should get his hand held cos he lost money. Taxi Man getting a hand out is a disgrace.

Quigs Snr

A very stupid comment there. Congratulations.

No hand outs have been given for a start. Its up for debate if they will be. It's easy to comment when it doesn't affect you. What about the bloody farmers for christs sake, getting handouts to keep land empty and not grow crops, they have their hands held and they are not even a public service. The scamming that goes on there is amazing (also from first hand experience).

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Well Quigs, thats Vaggabonds opinion.

IMO, anyone who bought a plate in the last few years was making a foolish decision based on the amount of media coverage on possible deregualtion. To coin the vernacular...the dogs on the street knew dereg was coming. AFAIK, it was in the PD's manifesto in 97 and hence Bobby Molloy followed through on their promise.

Asides from that I do have sympathy for peeps who were ignorant to this fact and although acting on misinformation were enterprising enough to make endeavours (a wholly admirable set of actions). With regard to this, nobody should be turfed out of their home and/or forced into the greasy palms of money lenders and the likes and so each application(if indeed this will be the case) should be assessed on each cirumstance and if fair and equitable then some form of relief should be available. These may necessarily not be in the form of direct monetary payments but perhaps through tax credits or like means, especially for those still plying their trade as taxi men.

Quigs Snr

A balanced view for sure. The dogs on the street however did not know it was coming or 3000+ taximen wouldn't have been caught on the hop in november 2000.

There was no talk of it, certainley not down here. Now I was just ending an 8 year stint in Dublin around that time and I recall every christmas complaining about no taxis at the weekends and christmas. Deregulation itself was not mentioned as an option. In fact the 'solution' was to be loads of wheelchair accessible cabs, hundreds of them with special tax breaks to compensate for the high cost of the initial purchase, they were hoping that this would alleviate the problem. Of course it didn't. And neither did regulation, it's still as hard in my experience, to get a taxi after closing time in Dublin City Centre.

The tax breaks by way of compensation would not work too well either. My dad is in his 50s and based on his books over the past year and a half we worked out that he would be 90 years old before the tax breaks alone cleared off the loan plus interest.

I don't think there is a uniform solution to this problem. I think the media portray it as if every cabbie is going to get a huge handout. Not so. Each case needs to be taken on its own merits. I suspect that in 90% of cases there will be no action required. In other cases a small help maybe through tax breaks, and in others, well they'll just have to do the right thing.

Like they were going to do with people who had their pants pulled down on the Eircom shares. Now I know that they were sold with a warning that shares can go up and down (I didn't buy em). However they were missold at an inflated price in the first place so thats why people including several ministers thought they had a case. Can't remember what actually happened there.

Anyway the point is that I reckon I'm right about the cabbies and Vaggabond is wrong, the reasoning behind this is that powerful lobby groups comprising several TD's, local councillors, Siptu, etc.... have sprung up behind some of the taxi men, hence the setting up of the hardship panel. Asshole Taxi drivers, no more than mindless thugs left the rest of the down with their behaviour after deregulation and really put the public on the governments side, I don't think that the government would have set up the panel unless they felt there was a case for it, at the risk of upsetting the public (who understandably had no pity for the drivers after their atrocious behaviour, blockades, strikes, language on TV).

I emailed Bobby Molloy myself at that time to complain and earlier this year (the week before he 'left' office) he emailed me to inform me of the Taxi Hardship Panel, set up to deal with legitimate cases who had evidence to prove that they had been hard done by. The fact that I got this mail from the man himself suggested that they thought there was a case as a result of their actions. That and the general election coming up, perhaps they were thinking lots of cabbies, lots of extended familiy, could easily sway a vote for a particular politician.

However, everyones entitled to an opinion and I won't be crying into my porridge tomorrow because someone either for whatever reason be it ignorance or whatever, doesn't agree. All that matters right now is that someone in the goverment agrees. Because if they don't and my dad gets ill, the bank will have no mercy.

article6

Yeah, I guess we could end farm subsidies... if you want to pay €40 for a steak

RainyDay

Let's get a few facts on the table;

- The Govt did NOT deregulate the taxi industry. The Courts did.

- Stating that the Govt recognised the tangible value of a taxi plate because they would have charged CGT on it is irrelevant. If we follow that logic, the Govt should compensate all Enron/Eircom/.com shareholders in the same way.

- For every poor taxi plate purchaser who bought a plate for 80k, there is a rich taxi plate seller who sold a plate for 80k. Why don't they just get together and sort it out between them?

- Anyone who remortgages their home to invest in any business venture (taxi plate, investment property, shop, shares) cannot expect the Govt to bale them out when the investment tanks. They understood exactly what risks they were taking when they took out the mortgage, so they have to be prepared to pay the price.

- The taxi industry is rife with tax fraud & money laundering by serious crim's - No tax payer money should go to baling out these guys any further.

- On a personal level, I have sympathy for the gentleman who invested & lost, just like I have sympathy for those who lost money on Eircom, or in .com businesses or ... I just don't want my tax being used to support bad business ideas.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by RainyDay
Let's get a few facts on the table;

- The Govt did NOT deregulate the taxi industry. The Courts did.

Hmmm...
I think your a bit confused re: The Separation of Powers concept there Rainy.

**The Govt. represent the Legislature (ie. the Law Makers)
**The Courts represent the Judiciary (ie. the Law Interpreters)

RainyDay

Thanks for your feedback 80sProject, but I don't see any confusion here. There was no Govt decision to deregulate the Taxi industry. The decision was made in a court case where the judge ruled that any quantitative restriction on the taxi licences was not constitutional. No Govt has ever had the neck to make a hard decision on this one.

Unless of course, you know different ....

b20uvkft6m5xwg

The Govt Deregulated the industry. That court case was on a point of law re: the Constitutionality of the afore mentioned deregualtion. As stated the courts interprete the law...They do not make it. Hence, the law in regard to Taxi Dereg. was made by the Oireachtas, so it would fallacious to say the Courts deregualted the taxi industry in Ireland.

sceptre

80p is totally correct in what he's said.

Bobby Molloy was about to issue 3100 new plates in an attempt to begin deregulation of the industry in stages. This decision was announced in December 1999. The intention to have a deregulated industry was made clear from the beginning. Applications were invited in early November 2000.

Following this a case was taken by a group of Dublin and Dundalk hackney drivers as the Minister was about to award most of the new plates to existing taxi drivers.

The court (on 21 November 2000) decided that the Minister didn't have the right to limit the number of plates at all.

The reaction of the government at the time was that the Minister had achieved his objective, albeit quicker than was planned. The order that came out of the decision was that anyone that had a driving licence and a car could purchase a taxi licence.

Here's a nice quote following the decision:
“It’s not just the taxi drivers who can apply for the licences because of this decision, anyone can apply for them and that doesn’t suit us all,” said John Usher of the Irish Taxi Drivers’ Association.

I should add to the bottom of this (before anyone is still of the notion that deregulation was done solely by the courts) that what Molloy was trying to do was deregulate the industry in a somewhat regulated way. The issuing of 150 licences per week would have opened the market in a gradual way rather than being a complete financial shock to taxi drivers. The timing of the applications was to facilitate the Christmas need as an important problem that needed to be addressed. What the court decision did (obviously interpreting the law rather than making it up) was open the gates to applications all at once.

Borzoi

To paraphrase Rainyday:

The council never charged £80k for a plate - other taximen did. Who made the money - other taximen. Not the council or government.

To be honest I have personal sympathy for your dad and yourself - but that doesn't maen I want to reach into my pocket to help you guys out on what was essentially a business decision.

If you, and the Taxi industry feel that there are hardship cases out there, why don't you set up your own industry fund, either voluntary or try to get govt backing, say taking 1-2% of the existing fares to go to the fund. Other industries have similar funds, why not yours?

RainyDay

Hi 80p/sceptre

I reckon we're all somewhat correct on this one. The Govt was attempting a partial deregulation of the industry, which the taxi associations referred to the Courts (not their best judgement call!). The Courts then decided on total deregulation, which went beyond Minister Molloy's wildest dreams.

Anyway, back to the core issue - Has anyone got a good reason why my taxes should subsidise bad investments made by purchasers of taxi licences? If they suffer true hardship, then the existing state infrastructure will kick in for them, same as for anyone else. There was clearly a possibility of at least some deregulation on the cards for the last 5 years or so, so anyone who bought in that time can't claim to have been totally surprised!