Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is high time people outside the Pale were recognised and that legislation reflected their concerns.

I am not simply raising these issues just to be awkward, but I hope these proposals will be accepted in the spirit in which I have put them forward.

I will conclude by noting that while it is important to concentrate on learner drivers, one should note that they have received eight or ten lessons, from which they emerge with a level of competence that I am sure was not matched by the level with which Deputies Thomas P. Broughan and Dessie Ellis and I emerged. To be clear, we received three or four lessons and perhaps did not even have the price of them. While they are reaching that level of competence now, were one to include them in the school curriculum, it would be guaranteed. All Members present studied the three Rs, but this skill is as important because unless one has a full driver's licence on one's curriculum vitae, in the country one may as well say goodbye to the hills as far as getting a job is concerned. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle who comes from a rural constituency knows that unless one has a driver's licence, it is goodbye. I do not refer to Dublin in this regard but simply to the general position in rural areas. It is easy for people in urban areas as they can manage, but it definitely has been proved to be difficult in rural areas. I urgently ask the Minister to consider these proposals because they would be well received in rural Ireland and generate both greater respect for the law and people's adherence to it, once they saw there was a common-sense touch to it.

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