Taxi unions and the Minister of State for the Environment are set on a collision course at tomorrow's crucial meeting on deregulation of the industry.
Mr Molloy is bringing with him officials of the Department of Finance who will explain the Government's plans to compensate drivers who recently bought taxi-plates. However, the taxi unions now say they are no longer interested in compensation and are demanding "reregulation", effectively an abandonment of the deregulation introduced earlier this month.
However, a source close to Mr Molloy insisted last night that the deregulation process was "under way and unstoppable".
The unions warned yesterday of a protracted campaign of opposition to deregulation if no progress is made at tomorrow's meeting.
"This will go on like the miners' strike," warned Mr Vincent Kearns of the National Taxi Drivers' Union after a meeting of more than 1,800 members of the NTDU and the Irish Taxi-Drivers' Federation in Dublin yesterday.
Mr Kearns and Mr John Ussher, president of the ITDU, said protests would be orderly and there would be no blockades of traffic. But Mr Ussher added: "Having said that, we didn't organise the original blockade, and I don't know if we'll be able to control the men's anger if the results are negative when we come out of the meeting with Molloy." After the meeting members of the two unions will reconvene to consider what to do next. There will be no taxi services in Dublin and the other cities affected by the protest until after this meeting at the earliest.
Union representatives angrily rejected suggestions that taxi-drivers were paying less tax than they should. According to Mr Kearns, the reason some drivers had low tax bills was that they had high overheads. For example, wheelchair-accessible taxis could cost as much as £41,000, and be replaced at a cost of £25,000 within two years, he said.
The Revenue Commissioners confirmed that those taxi drivers audited last year paid an average additional settlement of £7,000, not including tax and penalties.
The unions are expected to tell Mr Molloy tomorrow that they will accept an increase in the number of taxis in Dublin, but all new plates must be for wheelchair-accessible cars and cost at least £15,000. This would effectively exclude anyone with less than £50,000 to spend from entering the business.
Yesterday's meeting took the form of a morale-booster rather than a decision-making forum. Flag-waving delegations travelled from Limerick and Mr Molloy's constituency in Galway to voice their opposition to the Government's moves.
Hardship cases were highlighted. A five-year-old boy told the meeting his mother had no money as a result of the dispute. A Galway driver said he thought of driving his car into the Corrib as a result of the deregulation decision.
The media, who were excluded from the meeting, were admitted in time to heard the meeting chant "No dereg", "Molloy out" and "Harney out". A driver who went on to shout "Harney's dead" was silenced by his colleagues.
Galway drivers claimed the streets would be flooded with part-time drivers, and the taxi business would return to "the law of the jungle" as a result of deregulation. Teenage sons and daughters would not be safe travelling at night because of the lack of control.
Several dozen drivers who regularly transport disabled children and blood supplies are to be allowed work during the strike. The meeting granted the dispensation after hearing that last week's disruption had caused considerable hardship. The drivers' earnings are to be donated to the unions' strike fund.