I can't see why he would be bullied. He got a decent campaign going. It's disappointing that he get enough drivers to delete Uber to impact on driver availability on that platform. In general, you won't hear a good word about Uber from any taxi drivers anywhere in the world but when it comes to Ireland drivers seem to have a love hate relationship with it. They can protest against it one day and work for it the next which defies belief. At the end of the day if drivers supported Derek's campaign and deleted the app it would cease to exist in Ireland.
Of course, Uber has the money to give away virtually free rides which, whatever way you look at it, is putting money in drivers' pockets and that is clearly money the men want or need.
In any event, the keyboard warriors need to ask themselves what they have done to highlight concerns with rideshare platforms... whether that's passengers who ought to be concerned about surge fees increasing substantially if left unregulated or drivers who ought to be concerned about maintaining a sustainable trade once the rideshare platforms withdraw their subsidising fares. For Derek's part he has grabbed the attention of drivers, politicians, the regulatory authorities and the media.
I don't think it's fair to say he has no affiliation with our trade. He works as a limousine driver and he provides a fixed fare taxi service in Cork. Uber is clearly undercutting his fares in both of those activities so he has every right to stand up to them. He's also a well regarded businessman and tour guide in Cork. I don't know if he gets paid for running the Taxi Drivers [of] Ireland union or not as I'm not a member but he's clearly a good spokesperson. Yes, he's a bit devious and he certainly misled many drivers in setting up the union, at least in claiming to want to negotiate with Uber. That was never on the cards (he's a direct competitor to Uber in Cork) and he obviously knew that but being a bit devious isn't necessarily a bad thing when you're dealing with politicians.
I don't think we would have an Oireachtas Committee in the offing or have the Minister instructing NTA to review relevant regulations if it wasn't for Derek's efforts.
