Members of the Irish Taxi Council (ITC) is planning to give Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey seven days notice before implementing an “indefinite national protest”.
Following a meeting by the ITC in the National Show Centre in Swords this afternoon, the council said further action would not take place until next week.
The council is undecided whether or not to start the protest on St Patrick’s Day or Thursday March 18th.
President of the council Frank Byrne told The Irish Times that his members will protest for as long as it takes to achieve their demands.
“Today it was decided to put forward our 11-point plan which is the Oireachtas Transport Committee Report recommended by an elected body to the Minister who has totally ignored it and we want the implementation of it immediately.
“To that end, the men here today have decided to give seven days notice and then go into a national strike.”
Among the 11 demands are calls for new legislation which would put a three-year moratorium on the issuing of taxi licences. Exceptions would be made for wheelchair-accessible taxis.
The ITC was established in July of last year and is made up of 27 separate associations. It is also calling for additional taxi ranks in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway as well as Waterford and wants insurance certs to be checked in real time in order to expose fraudulent certificates.
The Council is also calling for a new system to be put in place that legally obliges applicants to undergo tests equal to or exceeding the standard required to obtain an Irish driving licence.
Other demands include proficiency in the Irish and/or English language, a relinquishing of taxi plates via the office of the Regulator and a ban on the renting and leasing of plates where the replacement of a car does not take place.
The ITC which has in excess of 15,000 members nationwide who are all full-time drivers, says it will now engage with other taxi governing bodies.
This afternoon taxis are back in operation following earlier protests.
Last night, rush-hour traffic ground to a standstill in Dublin city centre as scores of taxi drivers took part in impromptu industrial action.
O’Connell Street was closed in both directions from about 4pm onwards, with Pembroke Street, Fitzwilliam Square South and West and part of the Luas Red line also blocked for periods.
Taxi drivers in Cork, Waterford, Kerry, Limerick, Waterford, Sligo and Donegal also withdrew services in support of a sit-in by two members of the ITC at the office of the Commission of Taxi Regulation.
The action began when a small group identifying themselves as ITC members forced entry to the commission’s office at Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin, on Monday, and refused to exit the lobby area.
Two of the men, Thomas Barton and Patrick Walsh, did not leave the offices until about 8pm last night. An interim High Court injunction ordering them to do so was granted by Ms Justice Mary Laffoy earlier in the day.
The injunction restrained trespass on the commission’s offices by members of the ITC, and Ms Justice Laffoy also ordered that no member of the ITC go within 30 metres of the two entrances to the regulator’s offices pending further order of the court.
A demonstration in support of the men was called in Dublin yesterday morning, with up to 500 drivers withdrawing their service at Dublin airport from 8am. It later spread across the country.
Gardaí in Dublin were forced to divert vehicles away from O’Connell Street last night as a number of taxis were parked so as to block the flow of traffic.
This morning in the High Court a number of taxi drivers gave undertakings to stay away from the Office of Commission of Taxi Regulation.