A record number of complaints were made against taxi and other private hire drivers in 2023, with December producing the highest monthly figure ever recorded.
Over the course of the year 1,782 complaints regarding small public service vehicle (SPSV) drivers were recorded, with nearly half connected to a taxi driver’s failure to provide cashless payment, which they have been legally required to do since September 2022.
Despite the increased numbers, however, the National Transport Authority (NTA) has yet to invoke its powers to suspend a taxi, hackney or limousine driver in the 10 years since it was given the power to do so under a specific “demerit” system.
Under these rules, introduced as part of the Taxi Regulation Act 2013, which came into operation in April 2014, an SPSV driving licence is suspended for three months when a certain threshold of demerit points is reached.
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Responding to a parliamentary question submitted by Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín in September, the NTA’s chief executive Anne Graham confirmed that “no demerit offences have been endorsed in the SPSV driving licence records in the past 10 years”.
Under the 2013 legislation any SPSV driver who is convicted of a serious offence will have their licence automatically disqualified “for specified periods extending up to a lifetime disqualification”.
SPSVs refer to taxis, hackneys and limousines which seat up to eight passengers in addition to the driver. Both the driver and the vehicle are required to be licensed. At the end of 2023 there were 26,360 registered SPSV drivers across the State.
A total of 707 on the spot fines were issued to SPSV drivers last year, representing an 11 per cent increase on similar fines in 2022.
Nearly half of these on-the-spot fines were due to poor vehicle standards; issues regarding the fitting and operation of a taximeter; unreasonable refusal to carry a passenger or failure to print and offer a taxi receipt. Just over a fifth of those issued with fines in 2023 were subsequently referred for court prosecution having failed to pay within the required time frame, according to the NTA.
On-the-spot fines peaked in 2018 when 1,878 were issued to drivers. These figures plummeted to just 157 fines in 2021 when significant number of taxi drivers stopped operating on Irish roads due to the pandemic.
Last year the number of SPSV licence applications soared, with 7,298 driver entry tests completed, more than 30 per cent higher than pre-Covid applications.
While the majority of SPSV drivers are aged above 50 years the figures suggest more people in their 20s and 30s are looking to work in the industry, according to the NTA. Ten years ago 111 drivers under 40 passed the test. The figure for 2023 was 991.
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