'Cash only' taxi driver facing loss of licence urged to open bank account
Are Payments By To Accept Picture Taxi Required Drivers Law File Cashless
A taxi driver who faces losing his taxi licence for refusing to accept card payments was in court on Friday to appeal against the revocation and the presiding judge asked the State to consider the proportionality of its response in effectively taking away the man’s livelihood.
Judge Mary Dorgan said the State was issuing fixed penalty notices on William Wyse, of Onslow Gardens, Commons Road, Cork, where there were complaints of him not accepting card payments in his taxi.
However, she questioned the proportionality of the State’s response in going further and revoking the taxi driver’s licence as well.
The judge adjourned the appeal until November 28 for submissions from the State to see if the matter could be resolved without taking the licence from a man who has been in the taxi trade for 42 years.
The crux of the matter is that Mr Wyse refuses to have a bank account, which makes it impossible for him to take card payments. He has a sign in his taxi to say he only takes cash and told the court he tells every passenger that this is the case.
The judge said that while anybody could decide not to have a bank account, the regulations require taxi drivers to take card payments.
She said she presumed the rationale behind the regulations was to allow people to get home safely by tapping their payment when they had run out of cash late at night.
While the judge invited the State to be ‘proportionate’ in its response to Mr Wyse, she did add as an aside to the taxi driver when she adjourned the case:
Garda Conor McDermot said the regulations required that taxi drivers accept payment by card but added: “We have tried everything we can to try to get Mr Wyse to comply with the regulations.”
Mr Wyse said he had no bank account, post office account, or credit union account since the financial crash of 2010. He has two functioning card machines in his taxi but cannot use them in the absence of a bank account.
Among arguments against taking card payments, he said there was discrimination against taxis because in some other modes of public transport cash payments were allowed and bank card payments were not.
At one stage during the hearing at Anglesea Street courthouse, he said that if he won the Lotto, the millions would have to go into his wife’s bank account.
To laughter in court, Judge Dorgan said that had gone on the record.