Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, and the Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, to meet with representatives of the taxi Industry and An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to discuss ways of stopping a spate of new attacks on taxi drivers across the State.<\/p>\n
In the D\u00e1il debate the Sinn F\u00e9in TD outlined some of the horrific attacks on drivers and he said many of them were traumatised and lucky to be still alive following recent high profile assaults.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been an upsurge in vicious attacks on taxi drivers in recent weeks and it is now happening on an almost daily basis. Taxi drivers have in recent days been stabbed, robbed, had syringes put to their necks, had equipment and cash stolen, been hijacked, had their cars burnt and many have been left lying unconscious at the side of road. One driver even had a noose put around his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 73 year old Dublin taxi driver was beaten up in Tallaght recently. He was stabbed and his car was later found burnt out. These attacks follow other high profile assaults on delivery drivers. Clearly new measures and additional resources to stop these attacks need to be adopted before a driver is killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Thursday evening in the D\u00e1il I appealed to Ministers Flanagan and Ross to meet with taxi drivers and their representatives to look at practical measures that could be introduced to reduce attacks and safeguard drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cInsurance costs for a taxi has trebled this year and if a cab is burnt out or a driver is injured there is no financial safety net applicable.\u00a0 In many cases traumatised and injured drivers have to return early to work to pay bills, put food on the table, and keep a roof over their heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been reports in the media that some gangs were targeting taxi drivers through apps and based on their age or fitness profile. If this is the case then this needs to be investigated and safeguards introduced.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also asked the two Ministers to look at measures introduced in other jurisdictions that might help increase the safety of drivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile welcoming the statement from the Minister Flanagan that An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na are conducting full investigations into each recent case involving assaults and robberies, more needs to done to reassure\u00a0 taxi drivers and to reduce and eventually end this recent upsurge of attacks on men and women who are providing a vital service for our communities.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called on the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, and the Minister for Transport, Shane Ross, to meet with representatives of the taxi Industry and An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to discuss ways of stopping a spate of new attacks on taxi drivers across the State. In the D\u00e1il debate the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[338,324,22,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardai-siochana","category-justice","category-taxi","category-transport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3801,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3800\/revisions\/3801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}