An application by two taxi-plate owners, representing 200 colleagues in Cork and Mallow, for leave to challenge the ministerial decision deregulating the taxi industry, has been adjourned at the High Court to Friday.
A separate challenge by the National Taxi Drivers' Union and two of its officials to deregulation will resume today.
The latest application for leave to take judicial review proceedings in relation to the situation in Cork followed a decision taken at a meeting of drivers in Cork last Friday.
Mr Justice McKechnie said he accepted that the two applicants had the right to bring the application ex parte (only one side present), but the court had a discretion to have the other side notified and be present at the hearing.
It was clear the applicants were seeking to strike down parts of a Statutory Instrument, SI 367 (the provision deregulating the taxi industry). He believed he was justified in directing that the State be represented during the application.
He said he believed a similar application was at present before the courts, a reference to the NTDU application, which was also initially moved on an ex parte basis but only began hearing last Friday before Mr Justice Kelly after the judge directed that both sides be represented.
Making yesterday's application Mr Thomas Creed SC claimed SI 367 was in excess of the powers of the Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Robert Molloy, and of no legal effect. Proceedings taken by a union acting for taxi men were before Mr Justice Kelly but he believed their challenge was brought on different grounds.
Mr Derry Coughlan, a plate-owner in Cork and chairman of the Cork Taxi Association, who is believed to represent 185 plate-owners in Cork city, and Mr Martin Luddy, representing 12 plate-owners in the Mallow UDC area, applied for leave to seek orders quashing SI 367 and for an injunction preventing Cork Corporation and Mallow UDC from taking any further steps to bring SI 367 into effect, especially making offers regarding taxi licences, pending determination of the legal action.
Counsel argued that Mr Molloy had a duty to consider his clients' constitutional property rights and had not done so. His clients had a legitimate expectation that there would be no change in their position without consultation.
The recent High Court decision striking down earlier regulations aimed at increasing the number of taxi licences applied only to the Dublin area.