The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has made a call for the deregulation of the taxi industry to facilitate the entry into the market of Uber and other ride-hailing corporations.
Richard Boyd Barrett has rejected the CCPC’s call as completely wrong. He said it will lead to the devastation of taxi drivers' incomes, and ultimately to higher fares for passengers once the likes of Uber exploit deregulation to achieve market dominance.
Richard Boyd Barrett said:
“The CCPC’s call for the deregulation of the taxi industry is completely wrong. The CCPC call would enable Uber to achieve its long-held goal to minimise payments to taxi drivers and maximise what they charge taxi customers. If successful, that will be a win for the Uber corporation, but a very damaging lose-lose for taxi drivers and customers. The Government cannot allow this.
“There are also important safety concerns here. With proper regulation passengers know who their taxi driver is. They know it is a licensed, regulated taxi driver. This provides important safety assurance for passengers. That will be lost in market deregulation.
“Instead of deregulation to allow Uber to devastate their livelihoods, taxi drivers are asking for a not-for-profit taxi app operated by the NTA. The NTA already have alot of the necessary taxi driver data required to populate and operate such an app. A publicly owned app would be a win-win-win through earning commission for the exchequer; through protecting the regulated taxi industry and the livelihood of taxi drivers; and through protecting customers against rip-off ‘dynamic pricing’ that Uber and others will unleash if they get their way.
“In other jurisdictions, the deregulation now being pushed here has resulted in market dominance by Uber, who then drive-up commissions from around 10% to as high as 60%. This has devastated taxi driver incomes while taxi prices to customers are driven higher by extra charges and ‘dynamic pricing’, when passengers are charged greatly inflated prices at peak times. This is precisely what Uber have done everywhere else where they were allowed to do it.
“The Minister should reject the CCPC’s call and instead ensure the Government enforces its own regulations, and amend them, if necessary, to protect the livelihoods of nearly 20,000 taxi drivers and to prevent Uber ripping off passengers”.