Putting up prices will not solve taxi availability issues, Uber Ireland has said.

Between 2022 and 2024, the cost of operating a taxi rose by roughly 9% to 11%.

On December 1st, the National Transport Authority (NTA) increased taxi fares by 9% to reflect the rising costs in the industry.

Booking fees will also increase from 2 to €3.

On Newstalk Breakfast, Uber Ireland general manahger Kieran Harte said price increases were a ‘blunt instrument’ that would solve very little.

“We are already hearing from the industry – from restaurants and from hotels – that customers are thinking twice about coming out into towns because one, there's a huge reliability issue,” he said.

“Putting the prices up doesn't solve the lack of taxis in the industry – and the NRA's own data has told us that the vast majority of drivers will not come out even with higher prices.”

Taxis in line at night at Temple Bar. Image: Ian Pilbeam / Alamy Stock Photo

According to Mr Harte, removing local knowledge requirements and increasing taxi car licenses would be more effective solutions.

“We’ve been calling on the NTA and Government for quite a while to do two things,” he said.

“One is to bring more taxi drivers in industry by removing the local area knowledge.

“The second one is vehicles; we have a lot of drivers that are interested in joining the industry - but the biggest challenge is they cannot do that.

“The only license they can get is on a wheelchair vehicle.

"Unfortunately many drivers - especially in rural towns and villages - they're not going to go out and buy a second vehicle, a wheelchair accessible vehicle, just to join the industry.”

Mr Harte said that 20% of Uber’s Irish stock is wheelchair accessible vehicles - in line with Government targets.

However, he said that wheelchair users are now competing with the general population for these accessible vehicles - which has contributed to reliability issues.

Last year, there were an estimated 25,000 taxi drivers in Ireland.

Listen back here: