Taxi regulation 'costing drivers €22,000'
http://www.independent.ie/business/iris ... 17551.html
DEREGULATION of the taxi market has cost drivers between €7,000 and €22,000 a year in gross earnings -- depending on whether fare estimates from passengers or drivers are used.
The figures were given by Bernard Feeney of Goodbody Stockbrokers in a paper to the Dublin Economics Workshop conference in Kenmare.
Mr Feeney said that drivers' earnings had probably declined further this year but the surprise was that they had not fallen by even more.
The conference was told that any re-balancing of regulation in the wake of the banking crisis should take account of the lessons of over-regulation in the 1970s. Cathal Guiomard and Isolde Goggin of the Aviation Regulator said a misguided and unattainable desire for 'zero risk' was a prime cause of an ever-expanding 'nanny state' and red tape. Winding down "over-reliance on government" would allow a more free society, in which informed adults voluntarily choose the level of risk they wish to bear.
Declan Purcell and Malachy Fox of the Competition Authority said that, even though Ireland prided itself on having an open economy founded on free trade there was "still a certain ambivalence to the benefits that competition can bring".