Dublin Corporation has approved 2,137 new taxi licences in the past three months, but there has been minimal impact on queuing times in the city, it has emerged.
In addition, standards of taxis have not improved and in many cases the service has worsened, both the taxi-drivers and members of the local authorities' regulatory committee have agreed.
While the corporation does not keep statistics on the subject, there is anecdotal evidence that hackney drivers have been heavily represented among the new taxi-licence applicants.
The number of hackney licences has also risen slightly over the past year, from 4,300 to 4,500.
The corporation is making refunds to drivers who paid £15,000 for a wheelchair taxi before the new regulations announced in November reduced the cost of a wheelchair-taxi licence to £100.
The number of taxi licences approved in Dublin is now put at 4,861 - although two have not been taken up by applicants. In 1997, 1998 and 1999, 750 licences were approved.
Despite the increase, drivers and members of the local authorities' regulatory committee agree that significant improvement in service has been discernable at weekends only.
According to Ms Olivia Mitchell, Fine Gael spokeswoman on local government and a member of the regulatory committee, there have been instances of 10- and 11-year-old cars being used as taxis since deregulation.
Ms Mitchell said the reason the improvement in the service was not immediately apparent was that many of the new licences had been granted to "cosies" and hackney drivers.
"Where once you had a taxi operating 24 hours a day in three shifts - one owner and two cosies - you now have three taxis working eight-hour shifts, so there is a trebling of the number of licences but not a trebling of the number of taxi hours in the day," she said. Ms Mitchell said that after the initial rush from "cosies" and hackney drivers, the availability of the licences would lead inevitably to a better service.
But she was critical of the Minister of State, Mr Bobby Molloy, who she said had failed to introduce a form of standards for taxis. Standards had been the subject of complaints, and she claimed to have seen a new taxi plate on an 11-year-old car.
Mr Vincent Kenny, vice-president of the National Taxi-Drivers' Union, agreed the service had not improved since the change in regulations. Mr Kenny said he was aware of new taxi-drivers operating small economy-size cars, which were inadequate, and the drivers not having a full knowledge of the city and county.
He accepted there was a more frequent service at the weekends but said from Monday to Friday the service had disimproved.
A spokeswoman for the Department of the Environment and Local Government said Mr Molloy would soon initiate discussions with interested parties, including drivers, to establish how taxi standards could be regulated.
