Less than a third of Dublin taxi drivers are willing to work during peak weekend hours, according to Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond.
It comes after many people over the weekend struggled to find a way home in the capital from their night out.
With the Christmas period set to be a busy one for nightlife, is Dublin’s transport system fit for purpose?
Over the weekend, most people probably had their Christmas parties, but many complained about not being able to get home.
Some were left walking hours for a taxi, begging drivers to bring them home and others simply had to walk it out.
While there are a shortage of taxis in the capital, are they all to blame?
Barry Kenny from Irish Rail, says they’re running their services in line with demands: ”Well in terms of the services that we do not operate in late night, while they’re popular, they’re by no means oversubscribed so certainly there is plenty of capacity on the existing late night services. Obviously if we got to a situation where demand increased further and there was a clear need for additional services, we would look at that.”
But this person in Dublin, doesn’t think the transport system isn’t good enough: ”I remember one night actually, I think we stopped seven or eight taxis before one of them would take us because they were all booked and they were all full.
One other man thought keeping light rail honest was a better option ”I suppose you’d end up walking home most evenings because LUAS ends at half twelve. I think that’d would solve a lot of problems for a certain amount of people if the LUAS was able to go on all night. I understand there is probably complications with all that.”
Another person says options are often limited ”There was no buses for me to get on anyway… so I either, like, do like an hour walk or get some taxi afterwards.”
Luas services over Christmas and New Year are set to run up to 3am on some days.
The question is, should there be incentives for new taxi drivers and should there be extra resources pumped into remaining public transport? It seems the demand is there.
