It hardly seems believable that at long last the taxi shortage is about to be sorted out. But don't expect to socialise with impunity over Christmas and hail a taxi on the street right away - the road to deregulation has been paved but the taxi customers' wait could last a little longer.
The news yesterday that the Government has accepted that no restriction could be placed on the number of taxis in the State, following a recent High Court judgement on the matter, brought a hue-and-cry from taxi drivers.
There is no doubt that a number of taxi drivers, some of whom paid up to £90,000 for their licences, will now suffer financially. However, their tactic of being continually obstructive has resulted in the baby being thrown out with the bath water. Whatever sympathy the public had with their cause disappeared during cold hours spent queuing and a number of late-night attacks in Dublin which were blamed on taxi shortages.
The taxi drivers are obviously going to go down fighting. They have withdrawn from taxi-sharing and have threatened that if unhappy with the new orders, which will set standards for the issuing of licences, they will go to court to try to stop the Government.
According to the secretary general of the National Taxi Drivers' Union, Mr Tommy Gorman, the legal action would be taken on the basis of "cruelty, disadvantage, that a lot of our people will go to the wall and lose their homes". He insisted that deregulation would not sort out taxi shortages.
Almost exactly a year ago, in December 1999, Minister of State for the Environment Mr Bobby Molloy announced a decision to double the number of taxi licences in Dublin, granting an additional 2,700 licences. This was viewed by the PDs as a significant political victory over their Fianna Fail partners in Government.
For over a year the PDs had been pushing for the deregulation of the taxi market. However, a group of Fianna Fail TDs, largely from the north side of Dublin, has held sway over policy on the market. Their voices, and those of the taxi drivers, appear to have been heard loud and clear by the Taoiseach. The power of this particular group over Mr Ahern has baffled observers.
In the revised Programme for Government, drawn up during the summer of 1999, there was a separate section on Dublin taxis which committed the Coalition to introducing measures to increase the number of taxi licences in Dublin as quickly as possible.
Mr Molloy was told to proceed with putting together a package which would reflect his party's deregulation policy while also appeasing the taxi lobby in Fianna Fail. Under the new arrangement, one new taxi licence would have been offered to any individual who currently owned a taxi licence in Dublin. An additional 500 taxi licences would be made available for existing taxi drivers, the "cosies" who do not own the licence for the car they drive.
Mr Molloy's plans were put on hold when a group of hackney drivers went to the High Court. The hackney operators claimed they had applied for taxi licences and were refused. On October 13th, Mr Justice Murphy upheld their challenge and ruled that the Government had no power to restrict the issuing of new taxi licences to holders of existing licences.
Now it seems the long wait is about to end. On Thursday, a group of taxi drivers were in Government Buildings where they were told by one of the Taoiseach's advisers that on the basis of legal advice there was no point in the Government appealing the judgment.