The Government will not be establishing a compensation scheme for taxi licence holders, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment has confirmed.
Speaking in response to news that Fine Gael expects to agree a compensation package for certain licence holders, the spokesman said Minister of State at the Department, Mr Bobby Molloy, had been approached by a number of licence holders in the "last few weeks, with particular incidents of hardship" and said "these were being looked into".
Asked whether any across-the-board compensation scheme for those licence holders affected by deregulation would be established, along the lines of Fine Gael's proposal, he said: "Not at all, no".
Mr Jim Mitchell, Fine Gael's spokesman on finance, said yesterday an "injustice" had been done to existing taxi licence holders when the industry was deregulated by Mr Molloy in December 2000.
Deregulation reduced the value of taxi-plates from an estimated £80,000 to £5,000.
This had caused "great hardship" to a great many taxi-plate holders and their families, said Mr Mitchell. A compensation package would be established by Fine Gael if it was returned to government after the forthcoming general election.
He estimated the cost of such a package at about €200 million but said the cost would come from within the taxi industry and not the Exchequer.
A spokeswoman for Fine Gael said Mr Mitchell's proposals were not yet party policy.
"It is one of a number of issues to be discussed by the party in the near future," she said.
Mr Vinnie Kearns, vice-president of the National Taxi Drivers Union, said his members were "very disappointed with the attitude of Fianna Fáil".
"I don't know why the Government has not moved on this. It would only take €200 million to get this issue out of the Government's hair for ever," he said.
