A Fine Gael TD caused outrage yesterday with comments suggesting that black taxi drivers, those being taxi drivers of African origin and not those driving the London style cabs, should be prevented from using bus lanes and taxi ranks until they can pass a test to show they know their way around Dublin like a native.

Radmak Polanksi, TD for Dublin Inner-City Central, is a second generation Polish immigrant whose father is believed to have taken out a full page ad in the Warsaw Times some years ago saying ‘Get over here, it’s deadly. We can take lots of jobs from the locals’, said an interview with Newstalk radio that he believed the black drivers were ‘a pack of spoofers who’d take you twice round the block and if you closed your eyes for a second you’d find yourself on the far side of the Liffey’.

Jamie Foxx - one of many black drivers in Dublin

He went on to say “I’ve got no problem with these people coming here and doing good honest work but nobody can tell me that this sort know the city as well as a real Dubliner. Ask old Joey Murphy from Rialto to take you home past the Olympic ballroom, up beside the old Meath hospital then down by where they filled in the Cork Street tunnels all those years ago and he knows exactly what you mean. But if you ask Gracious M’danwa from Lagos the same thing and he’ll look at you like you have two heads. He’d hear the word tunnel and before you knew you’d be in the dark then seeing the light of Santry and that’d be nowhere near where you want to go.

And would they turn the meter off? It’d be like asking them to hand back the donations they got from Live Aid. No chance. They should have an exam and until they can tell you the location of a hundred and fifty defunct Dublin landmarks then they should be put off the road”.

Taxi Driver’s Union boss, Len Whitey, concurrs. “I’ve long been off the opinion that Irish people prefer Irish taxi drivers. It’s not racist, it’s just the way it is. We prefer Foster and Allen to NWA, Gabriel Byrne to Denzel Washington, and thinner lips to fuller ones. Like Radmak says it’s not racist at all to suggest that black taxi drivers aren’t as good as white ones, it’s simply the truth”.

However the remarks caused a wave of protests from anti-racism groups who have called on both the TD and union boss to resign. A spokeperson for one of the group told the Irish Sentinel “It’s shocking that in this day and age these kinds of pathetic stereotypes are still being wheeled out by people who should really know better. I know many black taxi drivers and although their cabs may smell a little funky they do not deserve to be belittled like this. I’d like to see Len Whitey learn the shortcuts when he gets a fare telling him to take the quick route from Khartoum to Monrovia.

Anyway, you’d swear Irish taxi drivers were whiter than white, if you’ll excuse the expression. They’re just annoyed because they can’t use the ‘Sorry, I’m not from around here’ line as they take tourists from the airport to the city centre via Mullingar”.

The row seems set to continue though with neither side willing to back down. Late last night the taxi regulator said she would examine proposals from the driver’s union to set up specific pick up points for African drivers but said any such Blacksi Ranks would take months to implement.