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A REVIEW BY the National Transport Authority (NTA) of the national maximum taxi fare may recommend an increase in prices as the industry feels the effects of soaring fuel costs.
Representatives from the industry claim it has not seen a full recovery after the pandemic and that drivers are now also being hit with rising fuel costs.
Drivers say they have not seen a national fare increase since 2018, as a recommended 4.5% rise in 2019 was delayed due to the pandemic.
A fresh NTA review of the national maximum taxi fare is currently underway and the authority told The Journal that fuel costs will be a “major contributor” as it considers increases.
David McGuinness, chairperson of Tiomanai Tacsai na hEireann (TTnH) said that there has been more activity since Covid restrictions were lifted, but that demand has not returned to pre-pandemic levels.
“I’d say Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are probably back to 80%, but Monday to Thursday is still at 50%,” he told The Journal.
“To have massive fuel hikes basically forced on us on top of that is having a really detrimental effect on the industry.”
Because of rising fuel costs, he said the way the industry operates may have to dramatically change as drivers may not be able to bear the cost burden of travelling longer distances to pick up customers.
“You don’t get paid for driving three or four kilometres to pick up someone for the app companies, that’s at the drivers expense,” he explained. “If you do that six or seven or ten times a day. that’s an extra cost the driver can’t afford.”
McGuinness also said drivers may choose to park up at ranks, around busy locations, or to only collect fares that are in their area in order to offset the cost of their operations.
There have been calls recently for an emergency €1 surcharge to be added to taxi journeys to account for the rising costs of petrol and diesel.
McGuinness said that while his organisation supports those calls, TTnH is urging the government to go further than that and lower taxes on fuel, a measure he said would benefit all motorists.
“Everybody is hit by this, including other commercial vehicles like ourselves – the hauliers have been calling for the same in their meetings,” he said.
On Wednesday Cabinet signed off on a cut in excise on petrol and diesel, which will see the cost of an average tank of petrol or diesel drop by €12 and €9 respectively.
McGuinness said he does not think the announcement this week “will have any impact” and called for the government to consider cuts to other taxes on fuel.
He said drivers will also be hoping for a considerable increase in the national maximum taxi fare to help ease the burden on them.
“You have to take into account that the industry hasn’t been given an increase over the previous two years but the cost of everything has gone up,” he said.
“It’s not just fuel, I bought tyres last week and they were up €30 per tyre. It would have to be a substantial increase to make a difference.”
However a recommendation from the NTA is not likely until late summer, with a public consultation period due to begin around six weeks from now.
In response to a query from The Journal, the NTA said the review is “well underway” and that fuel costs are “a major contributor in consideration of increases”.
The authority said the proposal for a €1 emergency fare surcharge is not possible under the existing legal framework.
“The existing Maximum Fares Order states that the fares and charges contained in the schedule to it are fixed; they are the maximum fares and charges that may be charged by the driver,” the NTA said.
“Extra metered charges that are allowed, which include a booking fee, tolls and additional passenger charges are specified in the order, and a surcharge for fuel or otherwise is explicitly not among them.”
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Highly effective in other countries.
@Ariana: when I was starting with my aunt in America when I was a teenager, she used to bring empty driving cans with her when she went shopping. She’d have them over in the shop for money off her shopping. Thought it was such a good idea. And would be so so easy to Implement over here.
@Ariana: starting = staying
Driving = drinking
Have = hand
Stupid autocorrect
@Ariana: The problem is other countries are much more efficient than ours. We don’t have the leaders in place to make this a success.
I don’t know why were are charging the general public for plastic waste charges.
Put the tax on the import/making/using of plastics on the companies that supply foods this way. Make it so expensive for them to use plastic that they will then start using more recyclable materials.
We’re not tackling the problem of plastic waste at all.
If the food contained in plastics was so expensive that people went for cheaper container alternatives – then it means we are not producing more plastics to recycle and that ends the issue.
End plastic use, full stop.s
@Eugene Tyson:
Every charge you put will be passed down you know
@Eugene Tyson:
Making food ‘so expensive’ may have some other economic and social implications you have not considered
@Nick Allen: I don’t have all the answers – but I don’t know how people can sit around and let the government pass on every single cost to the end user, property tax, evoting machines, psc cards, SCU, Irish water, the M50 and other toll roads, eircodes, etc. etc.
Are we not sick of picking up the bill for every government decision? Have not enough to pay for?
Push the cost back on the decision makers that decide what packaging to use, push it back on them, they will change to alternative packaging.
@Eugene Tyson: you’re on the right road but, in order to prevent the costs being passed on to the consumer, just ban the materials at source.
Taxing the public is just more laziness that won’t solve the problem.
@P.J. Nolan: not necessarily – one company will soon figure out that it can change its packaging, undercut its competitors and gain a market advantage. The rest will follow.
@Dara O’Brien: All I’m saying really is that we are charging the wrong people.
We need a more dynamic approach – and I agree, banning it altogether would solve the problem.
@Ariana: I remember as a child in Ireland back in the 60′s and early 70′s and you would get 5p old money back on the large glass bottles of soft drink from the pub or shop and 10p for a empty flagon of cider from the pub. In America many poor or homeless people collect can’s as there is big money for aluminum and they get paid by weight.
@Eugene Tyson: A lot of plastic wrapping cañnot be recycled!
@Ariana: In other countries you can buy a bottle of beer for 40c and get 10c back. I’m guessing here they will charge an extra 40c and give 10 back
@John J. Smith: exactly my point _ ban it or tax it highly
@Dara O’Brien:
But at the moment that packaging costs considerably more than plastic so is a company supposed to undercut the rest?
A couple of things could happen.
1) A company could invent or refine the process of using biodegradable packaging to match plastic, brilliant, everyone is happy.
2)Ban plastic packaging altogether and companies switch to biodegradable at an increased cost which Will be passed on. Very possible that the scale up of biodegradable packaging might make the price difference small, hopefully.
3)A deposit scheme that will certainly help but like everything else in this world, the handling and administration etc, has to be paid for.
@P.J. Nolan: Milk is packaged in cardboard, why can’t you package in cardboard???
@Peter Cavey: I use the bottle/can bank all the time in Norway, you can get a voucher or opt to donate to a local charity.
Worth mentioning that this scheme brought the rate of single use plastic recycling in Germany to 99%. Pretty impressive.
@Bilbo Baggins: of course it would… germans!
@Bilbo Baggins:
100% result could be achieved in a total ban on plastic containers.
Yes, charge 20 cents extra. I am from Germany and this scheme has been in use for so many years and it works well. You collect the bottles and bring them back to any shop with a machine and it prints out a voucher that you can use against your next shopping.
@Janine Dolan: Perhaps we could just copy what the Germans are doing. If it works there, Then there is no reason it can’t work here.
@Janine Dolan: it is not a refund scheme if you only get a voucher and then have to spend it in the same shop. If you are charged an up front cost, then you should be refunded the value in cash.
@Jimmy McCarthy: In Sweden anyway, when you print out the voucher, you can then go to the checkout and have cash back instead. Not sure about Germany.
Practically though, as you have already gone to the supermarket, virtually everyone uses it against their shopping. Few would make the journey just to return the bottles.
@Donncha Ó Coileáin: yes especially would be useful for homeless people if they collected not returned bottles that were left in bins and made a few bob from it to buy food or cloths etc… and also for young teenager who normally wouls just throw plastic on the ground there is a reason not to liter
@Jimmy McCarthy: You get your money back her in Denmark.
@Donncha Ó Coileáin: same in Denmark…
@Jimmy McCarthy: you don’t have to use it in the same shop.
@Emer Mucke: a lot of homeless people are walking around in Germany and look in bins for bottle to return them.
A great idea, when I was young lad collecting glass bottles for a penny refund was very competitive, the ditches and fields were picked clean.
@Mr Phil Officer: when I was a lad in london I remember climbing over a fence to collect bottles….then collecting a few pence a few days later ….to the same shop…..
@Dan: we do what we must to survive.
@Mr Phil Officer:
In the small town I grew up in the local shopkeeper caught a young lad in the backyard going that.
They tied him to a telephone pole and tied a large dog to something else on a long chain that could almost but not quite reach the boy.
They had no more disappearing glass bottles after that.
@Mr Phil Officer: 20p back on Barrs bottles in Glasgow………
This should be introduced as soon as possible to help tackle the serious issue of one-off use plastic drink containers.
@Dwayne Jordan: agreed
Could we not just have a seismic shift and introduce glass bottles only. We can happily go back to the days of deposits or having an empty bottle to swap and avoid a deposit. It seemed to work well when I was a kid.
@Catherine Sims: collecting bottles was like Bugsy Malone around my way, always ructions and jostling for the best picking spots.
@Mr Phil Officer: The stakes were high though. Unless you had a bachelor uncle prone to pushing a few Bob into your hand when he was a little ” merry” there was no other way of getting money for chewing gums gob stoppers or Geary’s biscuits.
Of course! No brainer.
I voted no – simply because they’d spend millions getting the plan into operation – make a complete balls of it – then scrap the scheme – and introduce a new tax, possibly on air you breathe, to recooperate the money lost.
@Eugene Tyson: Get elected so, show us all? ;-)
@Eugene Tyson:
There is always going to be stupid people out there.
I have lived in Germany and this worked very well.time to bring it in here.
Back around 2007 Electric Picnic introduced a system where you paid 3 euro deposit on your plastic cup when you got a pint, refunded when you returned the cup. People were confused and kept forgetting this (or being too drunk to remember). I was volunteering at the festival so I was walking around with a high vis and started collecting the cups, and then people saw me doing it and assumed I was cleaning the place so they started helping me stack them up after some performance finished. Between myself and 2 mates we made over a grand in a few hours.
Yes, 100% – having lived in Sweden. You bring them to a recycling centre and get 10 cents back for them. It cuts down on littering. Also, any discarded are collected by homeless, they get c.10 cent for a beer can or plastic bottle, which is helpful, they collect all the bottles and cans, get paid for them.
Why do we copy everything the U.K. Government does, why can’t we think of these things ourselves?
@Paul Friday Shannon: in this case most of Europe are also doing it.
@Paul Friday Shannon: I think looking at what works in other countries is actually a very good way of doing things. The fact that we share many similarities with the UK means that it is a good place to look. Of course we should also come up with our own ideas too.
@Paul Friday Shannon: in fairness we have led the way with smoking bans, plastic bag levies, marriage equality. We don’t just follow…..
@John Cotter: True.
@Paul Friday Shannon: We used to do deposits so it’s not following the UK. It’s a return to the way things used to be done.
@John Cotter: plastic bag fee isnt enough and is therefore ineffective i think
@Paul Friday Shannon: plastic bag tax?
@Paul Friday Shannon: The UK copied us in smoking ban and plastic bags. Do you have examples of other similar initiatives where we copied them?
This used to be the case in the 60′s.
Of course.
Somebody has to pay to clean up.
There should be a recycling reward instead of a charge. We’ll have no money left with all these charges. Might help keep our street clean too.
@Píaras McNeill: you get the deposit back once you return the item. It’s not a charge.
@Píaras McNeill:
all rewards have to be paid for, so a charge will have to happen, one way or another
Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely the deposit won’t reduce the amount of single use containers, it’ll only help ensure they’re returned? Would a better measure not be to find alternative, biodegradable materials for use as single use containers?
@Ciaran De Bhal: think the whole idea there returned and will then be properly brought to the correct recycling centres. Rather than being discarded anywhere once the owner consumes the product inside…
We used to do it with glass bottles. There should have been a seamless transition when plastic became the norm. Like everything in Ireland, recycling was hijacked by profiteers. Instead of doing it because it’s the right thing to do, we ended up having to pay to do it.
@Ray Sutton:
Do you know the difference between ‘charge’ and ‘deposit’?
Works well in states, requires retailers onboard though, which means Thierry costs at a minimum need to be reimbursed won’t work if have to travel to centralised recycling centers, must be convenient ideally attached to large shops
It might just have a positive effect on dumping too .
In Germany not only is this a great idea because of the reducing recycling and waste but also tourists and people who can’t be bothered to bring the bottles to the shops leave it in public bins were homeless people collect them and can earn some money! So it’s a win win !!
@Emer Mucke: You must be joking, do you think homeless people are concerned about empty bottles. In Canada it is ofter elderly people & kids qwho collect them to earn a few cents.
@Chris Kirk: No, they are concerned about money. You’ve clearly never been to Germany and seen dozens of homeless with crates of empties, picking the streets clean so they can get the money for them.
@Reuben Gray: Germans have a different mentality than the Irish….
@Chris Kirk: Homeless people living in Frankfurt airport survive from collecting plastic bottles from the bins. I think it’s 15c or 20c per bottle.
I do wonder if it will work – there are many people who would not stoop down to pick up the 10 cent they drop. Of course there are others who might just do so but I think that convenience may be a problem…. in the older system the bottles were reused therefore the company were actually paying for a used product that could be re-used, it was not for “green” recycling as such. However your milk or orange juice carton or empty bean tin will not be re-used directly so the deposit will mean more profits for the company when not re-claimed – so am not sure who will make the 10 cent on the carton of milk that does not go back into the system…..
0.40c on > 1 litre,
0.30c tetrapak,
0.20c on < 1 litre
Repack have it sown up ,an incompetent Government organization,
@Desmond Wisley: very true repack are an incompetent disaster as far as I can see signing up with repack allows you to tell your customers they have to pay for getting rid of your excess packaging. I see very little that repack do that is beneficial to the consumer. Typical quango.
Finally some sense to motivate people to cut on a waste instead of introducing charges propping up private waste collecting companies.
Go back to glass containers or a mix of glass and biodegradeable. Easily recycled and low environmental impact.
@Geoff: Can’t see what is wrong with cartons instead of plastic, like they use for milk.
@Chris Kirk: most of them are plastic lined like coffee cups not recycled here
My only problem with this scheme, is my beloved Government will take all the money collected and spend it on magic beans or a ridiculous folly instead of putting it into the proper channels. just like motor tax going to Irish water ???
Maybe I’m not reading the article correctly but why should the consumer be asked to pay an upfront deposit on an item they’ve already paid for if they are only receiving the deposit back for returning the plastic, glass bottle. Where’s the financial incentive? Sounds like another regressive tax unless I’m missing something.
Will just be another bloody tax. I for one have nowhere to be storing all these plastic bottles in my house and we use a huge amount of them. They all go into the green bin so they are being recycled anyway. Absolute pain in the @rse having to store them in the house and bring them back to the shop. Don’t see the point in this at all.
Our beautiful beaches are decimated with all this plastic ,time for the government to get the finger out and protect our magical countryside and coastline .
@Anthony Gallagher: Remember there is a campaign ongoing that when you go to the beach that you pick up and take home 3 pieces of plastic.
That used to be done in the past with glass bottles in Ireland and if people threw glass bottles away in their rubbish, others used to go out collecting them and would take them to the shop and collect the money. It used to be whatever was charged extra for the bottle that was paid for the empty bottle.
Not so sure about this one as our local bring bank presently does a pretty good job. The idea of a bottle or can deposit would make community bring banks redundant and what about them bottles/cans bought over the border will they qualify too. Most people don’t rinse out their bottles and cans anyway before discarding them.
Single use containers should be banned. If it cannot be recycled ban it.Also there should be a deposit on all bottles whether recyclable or not it would encourage lazy people to be more enviromentaly friendly.
There are more pressing things than this trivia that need to be dealt with
@Tony Kennedy: You do realise that there are rakes of other articles on various topics on this site?
As a young child we used to go door to door and collect empty lemonade bottles in dublin amd get money back in the shop it was great craic
I’m already paying a bi. Company for tej privilege of taking my cans away after I wash and dry them, and now I’m going to be losing a deposit if I do that?
Im pretty sure I saw a documentry once about a guy who was in nuclear power, lost it all in the stock market but then made a fortune collecting cans & bottles ….then he invested in a manufacturing business that turned marine life into slurry… this might be dangerous….anyone considered that? Might fund abortion clinics or…. I dont know… get sinn fein elected, ooohh scary…lets just get the pope to take over again while he’s here
have your say