Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)

I thank sincerely the Technical Group for allowing me to speak on this important Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011. While there are sections in it which I wholeheartedly support, I have serious issues with decisions made by the last Government and by this one.

I refer to the lowering of the legal blood alcohol limit for people who hold full driver licences for more than two years from 80 mg to 50 mg per 100 ml of blood. We must be frank and blunt in stating that this will shut down rural Ireland once and for all. Over the past five years in particular, I have seen public house after public house shut down. This debate, about which I feel very strongly, has nothing to do with alcohol. It is about a rural way of life where people rambled to their local public house in the evening to meet friends, play cards and discuss sports, politics, religion and many other items of interest. Drink had very little to do with it. The people of whom I speak would have had only a couple of pints and they would have driven home. They never had, or were the cause of, an accident. However, with the ever-decreasing blood alcohol limit, they have decided to stay at home.

The parish from which I come had six pubs at one stage. Unfortunately, since last weekend, there are only two pubs left in the village. This is reflected the length and breadth of Ireland. A large number of pubs are closing each day - the vintners' association will testify to this - and it is tearing at the heart and soul of rural Ireland.

The Garda has a job to do, and I commend it on its work, but I find it ironic that in rural Ireland, mandatory breath tests occur all over the place and at all hours of the day and the gardaí are very active. Since I started coming to Dublin six or seven months ago, I have not come across one checkpoint despite the fact that tens of thousands of people use the roads and streets around Dublin on a hourly basis. Is it a case that there is one rule for the countryside and another for the cities and larger towns?

When successive Governments reduced the alcohol limit, why was a serious attempt not made to put arrangements in place whereby publicans would be financially encouraged to organise travel for their patrons or for other types of rural transport initiatives using community buses to take people home? No attempt was made in that regard.

The effect of the new limit will mean that people will not be able to have one pint and drive home. Others may condemn me for saying that is wrong, in particular in rural areas where there is no other option or transport available, but that is their opinion. There is no excuse for a person living in a city having a drink and driving because her or she has so many public transport options, including taxis, trains, the Luas and so on. They have everything in the world but unfortunately the vast majority of people in the constituency I represent have no other choice as there is no transport available to them. It is a case of stay at home or if they go out, they cannot have a drink. Our past legislators seem to have been oblivious to this fact.

I am against drink driving, which is wrong, but it is not wrong for a person in a rural area to have a drink, meet his or her friends and to drive home afterwards. Many politicians believe that also but they do not want to say so because they do not want anybody to say they are in favour of or condone drink driving. I am not doing that in any shape or form.

There is an ever-increasing trend towards depression in rural Ireland. What is wrong is evident to anybody studying what has happened in rural Ireland. People are living on their own, including bachelors whose parents have died and whose only social outlet was driving one mile to three miles to go their local public house. They feel that outlet has been taken away from them. If they cannot have a pint or two pints, they will not go out at all.

Everybody recognises that depression and suicide are on the increase, in particular in rural Ireland. Deputy Dan Neville touched on this subject a while ago. I thank him for the great work he has done over a lifetime in regard to suicide prevention and working in that sector. I also acknowledge the great work done by the National Office for Suicide Prevention. This is an ever-increasing problem and the source of that problem is what I have already stated.

Section 3 amends the principal Act and makes it an offence to knowingly drive a dangerously defective vehicle. This offence can apply to either the driver or the owner of the vehicle or to both. Since the introduction of the national car test, NCT, the days of old bangers on the road are gone. I welcome this section because it is blatantly wrong to knowingly drive a defective vehicle. However, people in rural Ireland are at a severe disadvantage when it comes to maintaining their vehicles because the majority of rural roads are built on bogs and are subsiding continually. The poor condition of many of these roads has a detrimental effect on the conditions of the vehicles travelling on them. It is easier for people in cities to maintain their cars in good mechanical order because they are able to drive on solid and even roads.

In the interest of safety and preventing accidents, I strongly suggest that the people in the motor industry should make a simple modification so that dipped headlights turn on when the ignition is started. Certain models of motor car already include this feature but it should be compulsory. Perhaps the Minister will pursue this issue.

The best drivers are those who begin at a young age. This is easy for a person who comes from a farming background because he or she can learn to drive around the farm. Given that it is not possible for everyone to make use of the countryside in this way, I encourage the Department of Education and Skills to provide a course in driver theory and practice at secondary level. Given that all our young people will at some point in life own and drive vehicles, it is crazy that we are not investing time and money in driver education as a proper school subject. In America, students attend driver education classes at their schools when they reach an appropriate age for learning the rules and regulations of driving. Although the classes are an additional cost for families, they are none the less offered in a familiar place and most students attend them. Students must also complete a number of hours behind the wheel of a car under the supervision of their parents or other adults. In Massachusetts, students cannot take their road tests until they have held a learner permit for six months.

I commend the Road Safety Authority on the reductions in the number of road fatalities. I raised issues with the authority in the past because of its concentration on drink driving to the exclusion of speeding, which I maintain is the greatest killer on our roads. It is important the authority be encouraged in its work of reducing the number of deaths on our roads. Anyone who suffered the tragedy of losing a loved one in a road traffic accident will attest that it is a horrendous experience for families, friends and neighbours. Over the years, I have had friends who were killed in road traffic accidents. It is a harrowing experience that I would not wish on anyone. We must do all we can to reduce the numbers killed on our roads.

Improvements in car quality have contributed greatly to reducing the number of fatalities in accidents. It is not 100 years ago when safety belts were not fitted to cars, never mind airbags. It is not unusual now for as many as 20 airbags to be installed in a car. People are safer in modern cars.

I commend the National Roads Authority on the work it has done over the years. If we were left with one legacy of the boom, it was the new motorways that were opened around the country. They were badly needed. In general, our national primary network is up to standard and the bypassing of towns has allowed for safer journeys. However, this should be compared with the experience of travelling on roads in rural areas. The neglect of hedges along rural roadways is a bone of contention which I raised many times at local authority level. The refusal by local authorities to cut back hedges forces people to keep to the middle of local roads and results in daily accidents.

It is definitely safer to travel along a motorway. I may be courting controversy when I suggest that the speed limit on one of the lanes on motorways could be increased. There would be nothing wrong if the speed was increased from 120 km/h to 130 km/h or even 140 km/h. I do not believe it would result in an increase in accidents.

In general, people are more patient on our roads thanks to the good work done by the Road Safety Authority in encouraging people to be mindful and considerate of other road users. We all have had the experience of being passed by a car travelling at a horrendous speed only to catch up with it several minutes later. Speeding should be discouraged except on the motorways.

Several years ago there was consternation when speed limit signs were put on certain roads for the first time. People were concerned about speeding on rural roads. I understand the signs were erected on foot of an EU directive but they were to show that 100 km/h was the speed limit on the road rather than an aspiration.

I hope I have clearly laid out my views on the Bill. One must take into account the effects of the Bill and previous legislation on rural areas. Politicians who represent urban areas might not agree with the points I made. The Minister of State, Deputy Alan Kelly, would, as he has experience of rural areas which have taken a hammering. The further reduction in the permitted level of blood alcohol will finish off many more public houses in rural areas. Some would have no sympathy for them. They might say, "Tough luck," but it was a way of life for people who did not no harm. It was the culture. In the future people will still, unfortunately, be killed on the roads, but it will be for other reasons. The people about whom I spoke today were never the cause of road accidents or deaths.

I reiterate my thanks to the Technical Group for allowing me some of its time to make my points.

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