Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Dublin Airport Authority\u2019s demand that taxi drivers renew their \u20ac440 airport permits, despite the fact that the vast majority are on reduced or zero hours because of the COVID Pandemic as \u201cunreasonable and unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Teachta Crowe has said the Authority need a reality check and has called on them to suspend or give some leeway to existing permit holders until the end of crisis or until market recovers<\/p>\n
Teachta Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cCovid-19 has had a devastating impact on the taxi industry, leaving many drivers without work or on severely reduced hours. State support has been minimal, but many overheads have remained at pre-COVID levels.<\/p>\n
\u201cDublin Airport Authority\u2019s latest demand to taxi drivers for \u20ac440 for the renewal of their permit in the middle of a health pandemic is cloud cuckoo stuff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhoever made this decision to send out this latest ultimatum needs a reality check as it doesn\u2019t take into account today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir insistence that airport taxi drivers renew their airport permits by the end of August – at a cost of \u20ac440 per vehicle – and without the usual option of payment by instalment is completely unrealistic and unacceptable.<\/p>\n
\u201cPassenger numbers at the airport are down by over 95%, meaning work for many taxi drivers has dried up. Drivers report an average four hour wait for a fare. One need only walk around Dublin Airport for a few short minutes to see the new reality facing everyone including hard pressed taxi drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe taxi industry is in urgent need of dedicated support at this time. Government, the NTA and the DAA all have an important role to play, but financial demands and ultimatums is not the way forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe DAA needs to urgently engage with industry representatives in response to the new pandemic-induced circumstances and suspend or give some leeway to existing permit holders until the end of this crisis or until the market recovers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Dublin South West Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Dublin Airport Authority\u2019s demand that taxi drivers renew their \u20ac440 airport permits, despite the fact that the vast majority are on reduced or zero hours because of the COVID Pandemic as \u201cunreasonable and unacceptable\u201d. Teachta Crowe has said the Authority need a reality […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4253,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4251\/revisions\/4253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}