Council must meet Taxi Union to deal with discrimination against black taxi drivers

dublin | rights and freedoms | press release Wednesday October 03, 2007 09:57 by Indyjourno

Dublin Sinn Féin Councillor Larry O’Toole has called on Dublin City Council to call in the Taxi Regulator and Unions to meet with the Transport Committee to discuss the growing problem of people refusing to use taxis with black drivers. Councillor O’Toole made the call after witnessing an incident first hand and after hearing of similar cases throughout the city.

Speaking this evening he said, “Last week, while passing a taxi rank, I witnessed first hand two separate people refusing to get into a taxi that was first in the queue due to the driver being black. On seeing this I decided to take the taxi myself to chat to the driver about the situation. I was quite shocked to learn from the driver that this behaviour is a regular occurrence.

“The response from some of the taxi driver’s representatives has been weak. While some may argue that taxi drivers have no choice but to accept a fare no matter were they are in the queue it is completely unacceptable for a passenger to refuse a cab on the basis of the colour of the driver’s skin and I would call on the union to stand by all taxi drivers and not take sides.

“I have called on Dublin City Council to call in both the Taxi Regulator and the Unions to meet with the Transport Committee to discuss ways in which we can tackle this growing trend.”