Sir, - Last Thursday's nine o'clock RTE news carried an item featuring the new Vantastic Transport Company and referring was made to the wheelchair taxi licences provided by the Government. Once again this was used as an opportunity to berate taxi drivers.
The Taoiseach showed once again that he and his fellow politicians have no knowledge of the reality in which taxi drivers live and work. Instead of giving a positive presentation of this new Vantastic company, they used the airtime to misrepresent the taxi-driving community of Dublin.
I would suggest to the Taoiseach that he should use his position to resolve the problem rather than blindly agreeing with incorrect but safely popular misconceptions.
To give the impression that the Government provided these wheelchair-accessible vehicles is absolute nonsense. The vehicles are provided at a huge cost by the ordinary taxi-drivers of this country at a time when men and women are trying to make ends meet with rapidly rising fuel, insurance, vehicle and maintenance costs.
Added to ever-increasing physical danger from robberies, assaults and attacks with knives and syringes, leading to months of terror waiting for HIV or Hepatitis C test results. I find it very disturbing to be constantly berated and degraded by people whom I as a citizen of the state voted into their positions of privilege. - Yours, etc.,
Gerry Brennan, Spokesperson for SIPTU Dublin Taxi-drivers Branch, Gardiner Street Dublin 1.