Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If I may interject, the law is very robust and the Minister of State is to be commended on it. The Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has his interpretation, some of which harps back to an incident during the summer - I will not go into all of the details - in which a garda was sanctioned for pursuing a stolen vehicle. Rank and file gardaí are being told not to pursue someone not wearing a helmet. The application of this at local policing level will need a strong voice from the Minister of State and perhaps the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, in order to see it overcome.

I will move on to another issue which has a Department of Transport angle. Some months ago the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister of State at that Department, Deputy O'Donnell, wrote to Clare County Council, as often happens, to state that they had scrutinised the county development plan adopted in April and were changing some of the zoning in it. We have had a debate on this and it belongs to a different Department. At the same time, an element of land zoning is the potential to develop along the national routes in Clare. I am specifically speaking about the N67 and N68 in west Clare and the N85 in north Clare. The local authority was told there can no longer be development of one-off housing along these routes. Normally speaking, it makes sense not to develop a house on a national road for safety reasons. It makes sense if we are speaking about a motorway such as the M18. It makes very little sense when we are speaking about the rural road network that weaves around west and north Clare. If we were to sterilise this from one-off housing potential, it would mean the death knell for that part of the community. It equates to close to 100 km of roadway being taken out. When speed limits are lowered, some cognisance needs to be given to the fact that not every county has a network of tertiary roads. In some parts of rural Ireland along the Wild Atlantic Way, many communities are built along national routes. There has to be some provision for people to be able to build on these. When the speed limit review is taking place, will the Minister of State cast an eye on this aspect and be favourable to development so long as it is safe? This should be the only metric. There should not be one rule stating it is not allowed on national roads. It should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. If it is safe to provide an entrance and an exit, it should be entertained. The homogenous heavy fist does not work here. It needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. I would love the Minister of State to lead on this when we are looking at a speed limit review.