Rickshaws banned from Galway’s streets next week

Galway city’s licensed rickshaw operators are facing an uncertain future from Monday as new city bye-laws come into effect which will ban them from the city’s streets.

More than 20 jobs are set to be lost when the Non Motorised Passenger Byelaws 2013 come into operation, while ‘sulkies’ (horse drawn carriages) are also set to be banned under the same legislation.

Although the byelaws only prohibit the use of rickshaws on named city parks and in the pedestrianised city centre zone, they will effectively be banned throughout the city as no new licences will be issued from Monday.

The licences of operators who signed up to the City Council’s €100 licensing scheme over the past couple of years have seen their permits expire in recent weeks, with no option of renewal.

The move by the City Council has been described as “very nasty behaviour” by the biggest operator in the city as his staff face into their busiest couple of weeks of the year.

Leszek Majewski, of Galway Rickshaw, told the Galway City Tribune that he has cooperated with the licensing system from the start. The new ban could put his 17 employees on the Dole.

He said that the 17 license holders with Galway Rickshaw would weigh up their options in the coming days.

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” he said. “I will probably have to sell off my bicycles. This is the best time of year for us, business wise, so we see this as very nasty behaviour by Galway City Council to bring in the ban now. We will see how it goes, but it looks as though we will have to stop.

“Already, the Gardaí have been stopping our drivers and making their lives harder. Some of the lads are very angry as we wanted the licensing system in the first place. Some are saying that they will keep going and see how strong the response is. They are saying that the Gardaí should have more serious problems to deal with.”

He said that some of the operators had been working in the city centre for seven years and they themselves had called for the licensing system which was introduced three years ago.

Four months ago, he had to learn through our sister paper, the Connacht Sentinel, that the three seater carriages were about to be banned, even though he paid the Council €1,700 per year to keep 17 of the vehicles on the road.

Read more in today’s Galway City Tribune