Grants to cover costs of rural Hackney drivers insurance costs.

[Firewall]

GRANT aid to cover the cost of insurance for rural hackney drivers will be provided under a pilot scheme in a bid to boost the number of rural taxis.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) will roll out pilots in the coming months in 17 areas where there are currently no taxi or hackney services that will cover the cost of insurance for community or private services.

A recent clampdown on drink-driving and learner drivers driving unaccompanied has sparked intense debate about how best to provide transport across rural Ireland.

Take-up in a special rural Ireland hackney licence is extremely low with just 13 such licenses approved nationwide.

CEO of the NTA Anne Graham told an Oireachtas Transport Committee that the slow take-up is due to the high cost of insurance.  The committee heard that the cost of insurance could be as high as €8,000 per year.


The pilot scheme would see the costs covered based on certain conditions which would allow the NTA to see that the service is being provided as envisaged, by checking bookings from the previous month.

Ms Graham said the scheme must be teased out to ensure that it does not undermine existing services and to allow the agency to better estimate the costs.

She said the initiative could go a long way toward meeting the travel demand in isolated communities.

However, Ms Graham said there is work underway to identify gaps in public transport across the State but said the NTA does not have a national database which shows what areas don’t have access to any public transport.

There is no timeline for the service to come online but it is a number of months away and a budget has not been outlined for the project to date.

The application process to apply for a rural hackney license will also be overhauled in a bid to encourage uptake

[Korky]

Better than giving Uber a foot in the door.

[Belker]

Nobody wants to work rural Ireland fer the simple reason there is no coin in it.

If 'Rural' Dinny, Joe and Padge get a Taxi home from the pub every night at a Fiver a pop, then that might just pay about half of the drivers weekly insurance bill, but if he worked in his nearest city then he could treble that amount in the same time.

Uber might seem like the answer, but you can be sure once the rural uber drivers get their licence it will be the cities they will be heading for !

Uber just want a foot in the door in Eire, as a foreman builder once explained to me; "Drill a small hole First, then Widen it !"

[Jack Meoff]

Why would someone want to put a hack on the road to do pub work ?
Shoit pub work and working nights.

[dalymount]

And for a fiver,!!

[The Liffey Lip]

Wait and See game now. I'd be far more concerned about the gradual nature of this process. When Healy-Rae Inc. is talking......it is thinking 5 yrs ahead of everyone else. Noonan threw a few bob into the long-game too.........

[taxi1990]

there is no reason any of the appps need to be involved in this. all the new drivers need is a phone, ring driver to collect you. to allow this service to be operated through an app would cause all sorts of problems with these rural area hacks working in towns and cities where there is already plenty of taxis available.

it is far more simple to keep uber out, no need for legislation to change.


if the government pay all of the insurance cost for these drivers it is great for them as they wont have to pay any insurance at all, when people are always talking about the high cost of insurance on private cars, but its a bit of a kick in the teeth for guys like me who paid 11,000 euro insurance in my first two years driving a taxi with no help from the government.

But as long as ride share does not get introduced i will be happy.

[The Liffey Lip]

I'll let John M get back to you..........I'm not too concerned about it at all. Somebody, somewhere always has info which is power. The drink-driving fudge and bluff between Ross and Mattie and the dynamic duo from Kerry had an ulterior motive. When they're showing you the left hand.........watch the right one.

[watty]

There was a driver called Steph from Mayo,  I think, on the old site.  She hated rural jobs because her taxi would be ruined driving up to boreens to farmer's houses.

Someone might get a taxi-lite on the road cheap with subsidised insurance but it'll cool their jets if they're forking out ?e500? every year for shock absorbers and suspension parts for their beloved honda civic saloon. 

And a few punctures up some boreen after midnight won't make them any happier either!

[silverbullet]

GRANT aid to cover the cost of insurance for rural hackney drivers will be provided under a pilot scheme in a bid to boost the number of rural taxis.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) will roll out pilots in the coming months in 17 areas where there are currently no taxi or hackney services that will cover the cost of insurance for community or private services.

A recent clampdown on drink-driving and learner drivers driving unaccompanied has sparked intense debate about how best to provide transport across rural Ireland.

Take-up in a special rural Ireland hackney licence is extremely low with just 13 such licenses approved nationwide.

CEO of the NTA Anne Graham told an Oireachtas Transport Committee that the slow take-up is due to the high cost of insurance.  The committee heard that the cost of insurance could be as high as €8,000 per year.


The pilot scheme would see the costs covered based on certain conditions which would allow the NTA to see that the service is being provided as envisaged, by checking bookings from the previous month.

Ms Graham said the scheme must be teased out to ensure that it does not undermine existing services and to allow the agency to better estimate the costs.

She said the initiative could go a long way toward meeting the travel demand in isolated communities.

However, Ms Graham said there is work underway to identify gaps in public transport across the State but said the NTA does not have a national database which shows what areas don’t have access to any public transport.

There is no timeline for the service to come online but it is a number of months away and a budget has not been outlined for the project to date.

The application process to apply for a rural hackney license will also be overhauled in a bid to encourage uptake

The clue is in the word ISOLATED.
That means sparsely populated.
That means very few customers.

Oh, that and them stinking of cowshit!

[taxi1990]

even if they only have 1 customer per night, they are going to have their insurance paid for, its a win win situation.

i would imagine there will be a limit on how many of these licences will be given out? insurance is very expensive these days, the insurance companies will be loving this news the robbing scumbags.

[silverbullet]

It's tantamount to state aid...which is illegal, but it gets Publicans off the financial hook.

[Belker]

There was a driver called Steph from Mayo,  I think, on the old site.  She hated rural jobs because her taxi would be ruined driving up to boreens to farmer's houses.

Someone might get a taxi-lite on the road cheap with subsidised insurance but it'll cool their jets if they're forking out ?e500? every year for shock absorbers and suspension parts for their beloved honda civic saloon. 

And a few punctures up some boreen after midnight won't make them any happier either!

Good old Steph 1 from Ballina, a gas woman in her day, I don't think she ever moved over to the new site when it changed.
She too hated all the 'Fiver' fares in Ballina, but still she done em as she said, if she didn't then someone else would.

In Cork city I don't do 'Fiver' fares, outside of family and friends I really can't remember the last time I did a job off the meter.

[taxi1990]

I did 5 euro fares for a short while when I started, then I raised the price and in doing so I have only lost around 1 customer who still rings me if he cant get the 5 euro guys. A lot of people still ring me before yhey try the 5 euro guys. I cant understand why some drivers charge 5 euro as even they told me that before the euro was introduced it was 5 irish pound fares so how the hell is it 5 euro 20 years later?

[The Liffey Lip]

Where is that? Most large towns operate a fiver local run policy within a 2 mile radius. The problem is if you don't have the meter on and it's beyond the scope of the radius...............you are screwed. When I worked this system in Ulster, I always met with serious anger when I pointed to the meter. I don't know about local runs being 5 punts back in the old days......surely they'd all have been Hackneys?