Sir, - Let me see if I can get this straight. More taxi-plates are being issued because people can't get taxis. And the taxi drivers' response is to threaten to stop people getting taxis?
Of course, the fact that the taxi-drivers' first response is to issue veiled threats says something about their general attitude to Dubliners. Can anyone from the taxi-drivers please explain why they need to be treated specially? If I opened a butcher's shop for, say, £70,000 and another butcher opened beside me, I wouldn't have recourse to compensation. So why should they?
Secondly, if taxi-driving is such a tight-margin business, why did some drivers pay £70,000-plus for the plates?
Thirdly, it wasn't the Government that charged them such sums for the plates, but other taxi-drivers. - Yours, etc.,
Jason O'Mahony, Pembroke Square, Dublin 4.