Taxi driving in Ireland

Listening to Jim Waldron’s speech yesterday I was quite moved and upset about his comments about a taxi operator that had worked up to a week before his death from cancer, because he did not qualify for any form of social welfare payment.

Later on I was looking through irishtaxi.org and Roy’s comments on it started me thinking about it again.

I had read various comments from another number of taxi operators, all young men, attending doctors and hospitals for various reasons. Crazy taxi and Silverbullet from our forum Irishtaxidrivers.com had made comments about their own personal health issues, (these were most likely flippant comments, but I suspect they are more serious than they let on).

My story.

I started thinking about my own position. I’m 48. Left school aged 14 in 1974 to work in the clothing industry (which was on its knees even at that stage). Met my future wife in 1975 (she also worked in the clothing manufacturing industry). We got married in 1979 and had 2 sons by 1981. That’s what you did in those days, none of that living together stuff in those days. It’s funny because once you were married you were instantly treated with a different respect by other men, all of a sudden you were a mature married man which now entitled you to act like all the other men. Your opinions were listened to differently and there was an assumption of some kind of magic transformation from immature child to mature man.

In the eighties clothing manufacturing along with lots of other industries eventually died and tens of thousands of people ended up on the dole. In Ireland in the 1980s, signing on the dole was a shameful act and it still is today in 2009. Nobody wants to sign on, as the nature of Irish people is to never be a burden on the state or other citizens and somehow those signing on end up feeling that’s exactly what they are, even though they had paid the contributions to the Insurance policy that makes up the payments for Unemployment benefit. I assume this stems from the formation of the state where nobody ever wanted to burden their neighbours, and pride being the monster that it is, it’s most likely those needing assistance were too proud to ask for it.

Anyway, I spent the eighties doing all types of work that I could get, sometimes my wife would get work and I would then mind the children while she worked. We did any kind of work we could get, dirty, dangerous, menial, and sometimes we got work at our professions in the dying clothing industry, but mostly we had to rely on the dole.

Anyway fast forward a bit, we started a small business making curtains and window blinds, and this in the main sustained us and reared the children until the mid 90s when the competition became so fierce that it was impossible to make a reasonable living. I got a job and my wife also got a job and we ran the business almost in a part time capacity, but in reality we were working seven days a week for very little reward, however, that kept us going until 1999, when the business failed completely and the job I had, finished, and then, I bought a wheelchair accessible taxi.

We never had any money of any significance, but we lived okay and kept the kids in school and eventually they made it to college.

We had been told that taxis from then on would be wheelchair accessible and I was chuffed with my new vehicle and the fact that my taxi licence would provide me with some form of pension in the future. To be honest I never really believed I would get anything as a pension, but my real intention was to work the taxi until I was about 70 (I can’t really see me getting anymore time than that, and indeed I will be very lucky to ever see that age) anyway at 70 I will die, the wife can sell the taxi and get a few quid to bury me, and buy the mourners a few drinks. I expect many many mourners at my funeral, nah not really, but those who do show up will be the most closest to me. And that at least in theory was the plan. 2030 no more JohnF.

Back to today’s reality. For the last few years I’ve been experiencing various different forms of health problems that I never had before. I know you could put this down to getting older but the reality is I know they are very definitely work related, and most likely from the stress of work. There are a few issues here, I’m afraid to go to a doctor because I know they will send me to a hospital. I’m afraid to go to hospital because I’m afraid I will come out sicker than when I went in. This is the hardest part of this scenario, because If I come out sicker than when I went in, then I can’t work, and my debtors will be queuing up at my door (there’s the shame and pride thing again, echoes of colonial times, of the landlord evicting you for not paying your rent).The easiest part of this would be to go to hospital and die, as then my debts liability will die with me.

The real facts here are, I can not afford to get sick; I can afford to die, but not get sick.

This is 2009 in a capital city in a country that is part of the European Union, an ambitious project to get harmonisation within Europe. And my part in this project is that I can afford to die, and my crime for this sentence was, I bought a taxi, it’s not really a crime, but it is criminal the way taxi drivers of this state are being treated by the Irish Government.

We made investments based on the then official Government position that entry to the taxi industry was limited. We knew that could change but nobody envisaged the situation we have today. We made rational business decisions and some of us borrowed heavily to fund these investments. Some of us are still repaying these loans. I had to borrow another thirty thousand euro to fund the purchase of a new car and a new taxi licence because my less than 6 years old wheelchair accessible taxi was beyond repair.

I had two options 1 buy a new wheelchair accessible taxi and use my old taxi licence, or 2 buy a saloon car and get a new taxi licence at a cost of €6300 from the government. I was told that I could not change the status of my old licence from a wheelchair accessible taxi to a normal saloon car, even as a gesture of goodwill (I felt they might take into account that

I had already financed a wheelchair accessible taxi and my competitors were now coming into the industry with saloon cars worth €1000 and €6300 for a saloon licence. The new competition was coming into the industry for an investment of about €8000 in total, the vast majority of which was going to the government. My initial investment including interest was about €50,000. So there I was competing against people that had invested less than 20% of what I had invested. You could make a reasonable living at that time and as such that is what I did for a period of about two years. The wheelchair accessible taxi required repairs of approximately €10,000 in 2004, I had to borrow that money, and now I had added to the borrowings I had. I knew it would not pass the test in the next year, and I spent all of 2004 applying for 104 jobs. I got one interview, but no offers of a job. The annual test came around again in 2005, and as I had not got a job, and I could not go on the dole, I had only one option and that was to borrow the said €30,000.

Even in 2005 you could still get a living, the hours were getting longer, but at least you could get the money you needed to pay your bills. Things started to change dramatically however. Very soon huge numbers of taxis were appearing on the road. Competition was fierce, people with full time jobs were driving taxis part time, state and semi state employees were availing of opportunities to take early retirement or redundancy and driving taxis as a replacement for their jobs. The main reason for this was that because with pensions from their state employment they would not qualify for any social welfare payments, so it was a good option to buy a taxi licence and work as though you had not lost or sold your job. In particular civil and public servants at that time seemed to think it was a good idea to drive a taxi. Fire rescue workers, soldiers, teachers, local authority workers were appearing on taxi ranks all over the country.

The really big numbers coming into the industry at this time came in with huge subsidies from the government, approximately €120,000 over four years. This resulted in the numbers attracted to the industry in the thousands. No doubt this appears somewhat over exaggerated and it is definitely anecdotal. The main reason this has not been scientifically verified is the government has not admitted to this subsidy until 2008, and even then the admission was convoluted and uncommitted. In fact the spokesperson said that they did not know how many people were availing of this subsidy, which is an astonishing statement for a government employee. Personally I have confidential evidence that what I’m saying is fact, however as it’s confidential I can not make the information public. However I can generalise and what I find absolutely astounding is the amount of money per thousand subsidised taxi operators costs to the exchequer, it’s an amazing 300 million euro per year. These figures are so amazing that they seem unreasonable, but the reality is the government policy is to reduce the unemployment figures at almost any cost (so that they can claim full employment in the land of the Celtic Tiger). On the other hand, the government spokespersons statement is the true picture, the government does not know how many people have availed of this subsidy as taxi operators. We know how many of them are out there though because we have to look at them every day of the week.


We had our third protest march on 17th February 2009 where about 2000 people marched on Dail Eireann (the Irish Parliament). It was a dignified and good natured protest where many people brought their families (school mid term break is on). The contempt we received from Dail Eireann was overwhelming, only surpassed by the silence from this historic building.

Not one TD or Senator addressed the marchers in a good, bad, or indifferent manner. One MEP Mary Lou McDonell and a former TD Joe Higgins did speak in support of us, but not even one civil servant was sent out to address us. This clearly demonstrates the contempt the political classes have for ordinary citizens, and the silence speaks volumes. A much wiser head than mine once said “for evil to prosper, good people just need to say nothing”.

Considering the current financial scandals (a new scandal seems to arise every other day) and the chaos that has arisen as a result, I would think that ordinary citizens (whether there gripe is justified or not) that march on Dail Eireann deserve to be addressed by at least the spokespersons’ from each party.

2000 people marched on the Dail (Irish Parliament) and not one TV broadcast media organisation covered it. I know most of the TV broadcast media see themselves as the elite in Irish society and they see taxi drivers as insignificant, but they covered our first marches when they thought there could be trouble, but when they found out that we are reasonable, moderate thinking people, that will not tolerate any inappropriate behaviour from our marchers, they ignore us, no story there.

Well the above story is the real story and it’s affecting thousands of citizens that are currently alone with little or no support from any source, other than their families.

I find our forum on irishtaxidriversd.com is somewhat a source of support, but it is just a few individuals that have actually met that really support each other, and, specifically the female content from steph1, helps to keep the macho men on the straight and narrow. Steph1 is the only active forum member that we believe is female, she may or may not be female, but if not, she does a good job of pretending; anyway I believe she is female. The others get and give moral support anonymously (nothing wrong with that) but the macho domination of the taxi industry does not lend itself, well, to group hugging and girly type kissing that I suspect all of us could do with every now and then. I know we get all the TLC we require at home but personally I get completely fed up going home every day and when my wife asks how was your day, the answer is always the same, Crap as usual. You get depressed sitting on ranks using fuel, wearing out your engine, and wasting your time, without bringing it home with you. However it is impossible to not bring it home when every shift brings in less money, and all the while in the back of your head, the bills are piling up, and there is nothing you can do to increase your income.

I have heard and read the comments, “why don’t you shut up whinging and get another job”. The reality is the majority of taxi operators are middle aged males that can not get a different job, there are no jobs available to us, and in the current recession it is highly unlikely that we will ever work outside the taxi industry again. Most of us know that, and we are currently trying to protect our positions.

There is nothing wrong with that, the real reason for that, is, we know when our cars die, we will not work again, unless the taxi industry changes dramatically. So it’s the rest of our life on the dole for most of us unless we can change things.

Part of the reason this is a relevant issue is that most of us know that in this scenario we will end up separated and divorced and eventually prematurely dead because most blokes would rather die than get separated from their wife and children because they can not provide for them (that’s the evil pride issue again). Most Irish men would rather die than put their families through the kind of poverty the future holds for former taxi drivers. Why is this significant for married taxi drivers as opposed to those that are not married? In particular married taxi drivers can not qualify for any social welfare payment unless their wife or husband is also not employed outside the home. Thus if your spouse is working then their income excludes you from any assistance from the social welfare system which in turn means you will be evicted from your home (because you can’t pay your mortgage) the wife is sent to a homeless hostel for females and children and the husband is sent to a male homeless hostel, because the local authorities do not have local authority housing available, (at present there are 165,000 applicants waiting for local authority homes, that are not available), there are other options but you would most likely spend about six months to one year in a hostel, because the system says you are Irish, and therefore waits until you have exhausted all personal avenues available to you (i.e. you have worn out your welcome with your brother or sister, or parents, and evidence is required, before the state will really consider you eligible to the other assistance available, i.e. financial assistance to rent private properties).

The real drawback and scandal of this is, public money is then used to maintain a situation where you can not get work, because if you do, it will be most likely low paid, and every cent you earn is deducted from your rent allowance. Therefore your family ends up in a poverty trap and you remain totally reliant on the state to rear your family, (there’s that pride thing coming up again, your family is doomed to a life dependent on the state, which is the last thing any Irish person wants).



Back to today.

Jim, Crazy, Roy, and Silverbullets, comments started niggling me. How many more of us are suffering stress related illnesses as a result of our job? I suspect that it is quite substantial.

This job does not lend itself to an appropriate type of atmosphere to allow you discuss issues with your colleagues, and anyway it’s much too macho to be discussing personal issues with someone you barely know. In reality taxi operators are on their own most of the time and the odd occasion when you might meet someone you know personally usually would not allow any kind of extended conversations, as you must stay with your car especially on a taxi rank.

It also struck me that it’s the regulations that insist on an almost 100 percent attachment to your car. I’m not going to go into the regulations here, (but please accept that, as a fact, if you want to know why, email me and I’ll explain that issue).

We do not have access to Trade Unions although the regulator insists on presenting discussions with the so called representative organisations (there words not mine) as consultation with the rest of us, and is allowed by the legislature to present this as consultation with every business person that operates a taxi. The facts are, every company, (representative organisations, insurance companies, meter and roof sign installers, the taxi regulator, the government, despatch companies) attached to the taxi industry are making money from deregulation. The drivers have increased costs and the passengers have increased costs.

The political party (the Political Democrats) that advocated free market activity in an unregulated world actively promoted competition as a means to reduce costs to consumers. Well now the PDs are dead; their former leader Mary Harney is still the Minister for Health, and her open market policies in telecommunications, taxis, gas, and health, have all resulted in higher costs to the consumer. The other industries are regulated for the service providers, this serves these companies well, but the consumers are not happy. The taxi industry is regulated from the consumer’s perspective, and they are still being charged more than they should be. The financial regulator did not regulate properly and the country is chaos as a result. There is something wrong with the regulatory regime in Ireland today.


Taxi operators are treated as public servants without any of the niceties that the real public service has access to. In fact the civil and public servants earning the same kind of money we do probably have the same level of contempt from the government that we get. Of course the higher paid civil and public servants have very nice supports and money and pensions etc.

The lower civil and public servants are fodder for the cannons for the elite of Irish society.

Ordinary Citizens of Eire R.I.P.

Note: Married means legally married or a couple of life partners living as a married couple. The system treats you the same way whether your legally married or living together.