Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

I too am delighted to comment on the Bill. I made many points previously in the Dáil on road traffic legislation, some of which were elaborated on when reported in the media. I do not condone drink driving and never did. Contrary to the message that went out during the debate on a previous Bill I still have concerns on the matter.

I welcome the Minister's appointment, his introduction of the Bill and his engagement. However, I have concerns about sections of the Bill and the Bill in general. Will the Minister indicate when mandatory testing will be introduced for those suspected of driving under the influence of drugs? That is a problem. The laws we pass must be fair and cover all types of offence and be seen to be fair to every citizen.

There was much debate prior to the passage of the Road Traffic Act 2011. Various comments and promises were made. I speak from a rural perspective as I live in a rural constituency. It is difficult to get taxis, buses or any form of transport in rural areas. I am disappointed that nothing is included in the Bill or the forthcoming budget to provide incentives to publicans, business people or taxi owners to buy seven-seater vehicles. If they could get VRT back or reductions were in place it would allow people to continue in business. In many villages and rural areas the public house is the only venue in which people can have meetings, functions, provide refreshments after funerals or hold fundraising events for the local school or charity. It is difficult and expensive to get taxis, but one cannot get them in the first place as they are not available.

If young people go to a disco in the local town they cannot get a taxi home to a rural area for a number of hours after an event finishes because it is more lucrative to do, for example, six local journeys around a town rather than go ten miles out into the country. One cannot blame taxi drivers. I have heard horror stories about young people being let out when they were only half way home as the taxi driver decided the destination was too far and he could not finish the journey. People have been let out of taxis in rural villages five or six miles away from their destination. The person who lives furthest away often has difficulty getting home. I do not wish to condemn the taxi service but people should be entitled to reasonable access to alternative transport.

I commend young people who in fairness to them have a positive and safe attitude towards drink driving. The culture is changing. It took a long time to change it but it is changing, albeit slowly. One death is one death too many. We have had several deaths. I was interested to hear yesterday on the radio that a new group has been formed to consider medical negligence. It was revealed that as many people die every year from medical malpractice as are killed on the roads. I was shocked to hear that. We have focused heavily on road safety.

Since I came to Dublin to work in this House four years ago I have never seen a checkpoint. I have never been stopped or breathalysed in the metropolis of Dublin but one could see them any night in Tipperary. I do not say they should not be there but I wonder whether we have one law for the country and one law for the city. Perhaps there are not checkpoints in the city because of the volume of traffic. I have never been stopped in the city either while driving or in a taxi.

Section 3 deals with dangerous and defective vehicles. It is an important change. Commercial vehicles must be certified by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and cars must get an NCT. One would expect those tests to have eliminated many dangerous vehicles. A dangerous vehicle could cause pandemonium and have severe consequences. Therefore, I welcome that aspect of the Bill.

I hope the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport or the Minister for Finance might introduce a scheme in the budget to provide for a greater availability of taxis in the countryside. To be fair to publicans, 99% of them are scrupulous, honest and hardworking. They are businesspeople who pay rates, taxes and for heating and staff. Pubs are being closed down at an alarming rate and road traffic legislation has an impact on them. People must have an alternative. We cannot allow rural isolation to occur. We are dealing with it in the context of the phenomenally high rate of suicide. Road traffic legislation has a significant impact on rural isolation. That was where I was coming from anytime I made any comments in that regard. I know rural areas and how lonely they can be. When people drink at home there are no measures or control involved. Neither is there any company if people live alone. The situation can be more serious if people who live alone are drinking.

I fought hard with the previous Minister, Mr. Noel Dempsey, to introduce a scheme to allow people to have recourse to transport. I am involved in rural transport in the Carlow, Kilkenny and south Tipperary area. The scheme is known as Ring A Link. It is a successful scheme and could be a flagship project for rural transport. It is faced with cutbacks this year. Eighteen months ago the project was threatened with closure. We tried to expand the service to include night transport but for various reasons it did not work out. Many publicans drive customers home and make arrangements to have them collected in the morning. They are entitled to have some recompense or support. I am not looking for something for nothing. I seek fair play for rural people. A Member can come out of here at night and get a taxi, bus, DART, Luas or whatever. Most cities have plenty of services. Even though they would not have Luas or DART, they have plenty of taxis. Rural people are entitled to their rights as well. We cannot ban them all into oblivion and tell them to stay at home at night and that once it gets dark in the evening, they should close their doors and not go anywhere. It is very unfairly balanced.

I am also concerned about drug testing. We were promised by the previous Government that drug testing would be introduced in September last and we would have some indication of its availability. It cannot be beyond the bounds of possibility. Following any accident with a train or on the rail track, it is mandatory that the drivers are tested for alcohol and drugs and the Garda should be able to have this equipment also.

Schools play an important role here. A previous speaker mentioned the leaving certificate. I mention transition year, which is a good programme that covers many areas. Most of the students, boys and girls aged 16 and 17, are thinking about driving and that is the area on which the Minister should focus. It should be mandatory as part of the transition year project, or some other project like it, that students would undertake this training. They should do their textbook training in school and then go out on field trips to venues, for instance, where motorways are built and old roads are being by-passed there are plenty of areas available for training. The venues are ready made and only needing to be made accessible, to have the trainers there and to have it co-ordinated. It would not cost a great deal, but it is necessary that we would educate people in safe driving practices. There should be meaningful set-ups with trained instructors and which can be speed restricted where students can go to learn how to drive. First, they would understand, from the textbook, that drinking alcohol is out and drug use is out, and all of the other rules of the road must be learnt comprehensively. Perhaps all we need is to develop one place in each province. Part of the transition year programme in schools could be to visit such areas twice during the year for a day to physically get into the vehicle, understanding the white line and the yellow lines, the braking distances and all of the challenges that face any young driver. It is expensive on parents to pay for lessons and the test for young people, but I encourage them all to take lessons. Instructors are available and willing. Many skilled instructors have retired and are available to become involved. Maybe the Minister could look at an intern scheme in this area. We must be imaginative here. We must work, especially on skilling the young people who will take the wheel to drive in all kinds of conditions. In this country, conditions can change so much from summer to winter and it is important that they would have experience driving in all conditions. It is also important that they would understand the sheer danger of the impact of a car with a ditch or an oncoming vehicle.

The position on driver testing is still quite difficult. It is still quite arduous to get a test and there are long delays. If a person turns up on a foggy morning, the tester may decide not to take him or her up, and the final decision is the tester's. The applicant must go back to the queue then and wait a long period, perhaps several weeks or even months, to get a re-test. That is unfair. A tester may be out ill or whatever; anything can happen. There should be quicker redress in such a situation so that the person can take a test within ten days of that happening. They should be allowed to come back into the system much quicker to take a test and, hopefully, pass it, and if the applicant does not pass, he or she must face the consequences.

There are some difficulties with the theory test. Let us be honest, we all are not experts; we all were not born in the era of computers. There are those in my constituency who fail who have difficulty with the theory test, not because they are not smart but merely because they are not used to those kinds of tests. The more some do it, the more difficult it gets. They are mainly in late middle age. They might not be too computer literate and they are not able to deal with that situation. There is help available. It is an area where we must cater for all citizens, no matter what their background or from where they come. There are people who merely cannot get around the theory test. I have anecdotal evidence of a number of cases where the more times they do it, the worse they do. That is unfortunate because then they cannot get any sort of licence, even to drive a tractor or any other kind of vehicle that they could use in rural areas. They all might not be from rural areas either.

I ask the Minister to consider those aspects. I ask him to seriously consider in the forthcoming budget, in spite of budgetary constraints, introducing some form of equity into the system where rural publicans or entrepreneurs who want to set up in business would be able to avail of incentives to provide safe modes of transport in rural areas.

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