A chara, – Like Justine McCarthy, we all think that the cost of a car journey is “petrol plus a little bit more” (“The €15.90 chicken wrap that proves Michael D Higgins has a point”, Opinion & Analysis, May 5th). She highlights the charge for a taxi (€82) from Dublin airport to Foxrock church, a distance of 37 km. She reports that the AA costs this at €4.63 or 12.5 cent per km. Incidentally, Aircoach (albeit only every two hours) charges €13 for a single ticket from the airport to Foxrock church.
While this AA figure might be the fuel cost plus M50 toll, it does not take into account the purchase costs, maintenance costs, regulatory costs, licensing costs, insurance costs or the depreciation (wear and tear) of the taxi. A more nuanced figure is garnered from the Revenue Commissioners, an organisation not noted for its generosity in assessing business costs. While there are different rates for the annual mileage and engine size, the Commissioners would cost this at up to 90.63 cent per km for largest car engines, ie €33.53. Additionally, the taxi has to be washed and vacuum cleaned at least once daily. On top of that, taxi drivers (and all hackneys) have to pay fees to a management company that provides the journey booking service, whether it is by app or telephone. And she needs to consider the income of the taxi driver. If taxi driving was well paid, The Irish Times would not have highlighted the decline in taxi driver numbers last August. Taxi drivers deserve a decent wage for delivering the passenger safely to their destination. Instead of comparing “rip-off Ireland” to a flight to the Canaries (yet, curiously, not the cost of the particular flight from London to Dublin which would be more pertinent as the taxi fare is connected to such a flight), she might ponder the dignity of taxi drivers to earn a living in a precarious job which has long and unsocial hours, low income, frequent verbal abuse and physical threats from drunk, drugged or disorderly passengers, and fare evaders. Indeed, The Irish Times has reported on “staged crashes”, yet another risk that taxi drivers face.
Throughout her career as a journalist, Justine McCarthy has been noted for highlighting the indignities experienced by the socially disadvantaged. Complaining about taxi drivers ought to be beneath her. – Is mise,
PASCAL Ó DEASMHUMHNAIGH,
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Inis Corthaidh,
Co Loch Garman.
Sir, – I agree with much of what Justine McCarthy wrote in her most recent offering. We are suffering price gouging on an industrial scale, whether it be on the part of hotels, restaurants and cafes, concert promoters, energy suppliers, supermarkets, the neighbourhood shop or banks which continue to pay close to 0 per cent on deposits while jacking up mortgage interest rates.
The underlying thesis appears to be that suppliers should not waste a good crisis.
We have been punched senseless over the past year by repeated price increases. And we are not helped by the quality of our financial journalism which heralds “reductions in inflation”. We need to understand that 6 per cent inflation this year following 7 per cent inflation last year is not good news. Inflation may have reduced. But the simplified numbers quoted would mean that prices are now 13.4 per cent higher than they were two years ago and not 1 per cent lower than 12 months ago.
Justine McCarthy does not help her case with her casual dismissal of Government warnings that a large chunk of our corporation tax bonanza may not last forever. She writes that this undermines the people’s contribution to our tax revenues “as evidenced by the exchequer returns for April alone showing income tax accounted for €3.1 billion compared to €308 million worth of corporation tax”.
Her colleagues on the business desk will tell her that there are two weak points in her analysis. Corporation tax receipts are “lumpy” because of the payment dates provided for in law – some months show very high receipts and others (including April) much lower numbers. The second point is that much of the income tax is paid by “the people” who are employed by the multinationals which underpin the corporation tax numbers. Figures from the Revenue Commissioners show that the top 10 contributors to our corporation tax take (all US multinationals) accounted for 52 per cent of the total yield in 2021 and 57 per cent in 2022. Another Revenue report calculates that there were 825,000 people employed in foreign multinationals in 2021 (a third of the workforce) who collectively paid €13.3 billion, or 52 per cent, of the combined totals of income tax, USC and PRSI. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Dublin 6.