Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I sympathise with all the families who have lost loved ones due to drink-driving. I do not condone and never will condone drink-driving but I support the right of people right around rural Ireland to have a pint and a half and not lose their licence because of that. I travelled for four hours this morning to get here from Kilgarvan and it will be the same journey back. I would travel much farther, for weeks, to defend these people in rural Ireland that I am elected to represent. I would travel for weeks on end to defend their rights. Those people in rural Ireland have been neglected and the Minister is trying to hurt them further with this Bill. Why does the Minister hate the people of rural Ireland so much? What did they ever do to him? I know they did not wrong the Minister in any way but over the past number of days and weeks, he has tried to hurt and did hurt one family with his idea that the parents or whoever owns the cars of unaccompanied drivers should be jailed if they are allowed to drive. The Minister has frightened one young fellow and his parents in Killorglin. This young fellow was driving to Kenmare for his apprenticeship. His parents got so afraid and frightened that they took the car off him and no he is at home with no prospects of a job. He has lost his place as an apprentice.

Why is the Minister trying to criminalise honest, good-living people in rural Ireland who have never done wrong to anyone? It is sad to think that people who are lonely will be made more lonely and more isolated because if one loses one's licence in rural Ireland, one is stranded forever.

These people will not break any law. They have not been breaking it up to now. Perhaps they are in other places but they not been breaking it in rural areas. People who lose their licence are stranded and cannot go anywhere. As it is, many of these people would not know that their neighbours down the road were dead were not for the good service of the Kerry radio four times a day.

The Government's motto is to drive people out of rural areas, one way or another, and to bring them to Dublin where all the services are available but where the social life is not as good. When I listen to the radio, every morning and evening someone has been shot or stabbed and there is trouble with drugs. There is no end to it at all. The Government has no control of the situation, but what does it want to do? It wants to jam the place up altogether. It is nearly impossible to get in here in the morning or to get out in the evening but that is what the Government wants to do.

I met the Minister having a cup of tea on one of my first days up here. We were discussing the programme for Government and he told me that, even if he got everything he ever wanted, he would not join Deputy Enda Kenny and Fine Gael. However, he did. As far as I can make out, the only thing he got out of being Minister is Stepaside Garda station and to be allowed bring this Bill before the Dáil to isolate and frighten the people in rural parts of Ireland.

I am amazed that more Ministers are not sitting beside the Minister today. Where are they gone? These people should be concerned with rural areas as well but there is no account of them today. What the Minister has extracted out of Fine Gael is a Bill to further isolate people in rural areas. That seems to be the price he got from Fine Gael. The amazing thing about it is that members of Fine Gael who are also from rural areas and have received support over decades from rural constituencies are now sacrificing all the grand people there to please the Minister. However, when they go to the doors they better not have the Minister behind them because their chances of being re-elected will be greatly diminished.

I will tell the Minister the truth. He has angered more people than I ever knew could be angry about the same issue. Whether towns such as Kenmare or Castleisland or villages such as Knocknagoshel, these places are totally angered by the Minister because they know this Bill to isolate them further is totally unnecessary and uncalled for. I am amazed there is no account of the Minister of State, Deputy Brendan Griffin. At a meeting of the Oireachtas committee, he posed several serious questions to the Minister and it looked like he was against the Minister's proposals. I am amazed that he is not here today. I hope and pray that he will not be the cause of inflicting these awful restrictions and regulations on the people of County Kerry.

The Minister has failed to prove that one and a half pints ever caused a fatality. Why did he have to use statistics from 2008 to 2012? We are five years down the road from them. The Minister said that 36 fatalities involving people within the 20 mg to 80 mg bracket occurred and he said that 19 of the 36 involved people were within the 20 mg to 50 mg bracket. If we are to believe the Minister, more fatalities were caused by those in the 20 mg to 50 mg bracket given 17 fatalities involved people within the 50 mg to 80 mg bracket.

I tried several others and asked the Minister to give a breakdown as to who or what caused the fatalities in these cases. The Minister cited data protection guidelines. The period to which the data relate began nine years ago. I asked whether the fatalities were caused by someone who had taken a lot of drink falling in front of a motorist who had taken a pint and a half, or whether they were caused when some young fellow going home with one pint in him hit a bridge or pole because of black ice. The Minister gave no breakdown or proof, and he did not outline his method.

There is a lot of talk about soft and hard borders these days. How is it that Great Britain has an upper limit of 80 mg for driving? It is the same in the North, which is only up the road. There might not be two miles between an area in the North and an area in the South but a fellow in the North can have a blood alcohol limit of 80 mg while, according to the Minister's suggestion, a fellow in the South can have a limit of only 50 mg. What does the Minister have against the people of rural Ireland? What gripe does he have against them? He has a gripe against rural Ireland.

There is a man who said rural Ireland is a burden to the State. He was involved with the Central Bank. John Moran was his name, and I reject and resent his statement. The Minister is in the same vein as Mr. Moran. He feels the people of rural Ireland are a burden and the only thing he wants to do is to get rid of them altogether.

The Minister could do an awful lot more as Minister responsible for transport. Many lives could be saved. Owing to hedge-cutting regulations, people cannot walk or cycle safely at the side of any road. The Minister did not contribute on the Heritage Bill, which involved a lot of talk about hedge cutting and trees. It is his role to ensure our roads are safe or safer for the people who use them. There was an accident in which a beautiful, lovely young girl was killed in Glenflesk this week. The reason was not drink-driving but another that I will not cite today. The Minister will become aware of it in the fullness of time. The girl would not be dead if things were done that should have been done. It looks to me like the Minister or people in the Road Safety Authority have no interest in these issues. It is very sad to think that this lovely, beautiful young girl who should be alive is no longer with us. Her family, mother, father and lovely brother will never again be the same.

Funding for road maintenance is to be cut. The Minister, Deputy Ross, said he did not know anything about it when asked, yet he is the Minister for Transport. It is supposed to be cut by 10% or 12%. There is no drainage along any road now. It is not being done as it should. There is ponding along every road. When it rains - we are prone to rain - there is ponding of water, in Kerry in any case. Motorists who have to drive into a pool of water when meeting other cars lose control when the windscreen gets covered, resulting in accidents. There is to be less money for filling potholes. They cause accidents because motorists swerve out to avoid them when they know they are there for days.

Consider the matters of the speed limit review and the reduction.

2 o’clock

I have asked the Minister for all those things before at the Oireachtas committee and he heard me raise it when we were negotiating a programme for Government. I also raised it on the television so he was bound to hear it. However, nothing has been done yet.

We then had a master idea from Deputy Martin Heydon who claims to be from rural Ireland. I inquired where he was from only to be told he is from Kildare. If he thinks he is from rural Ireland, I will take him around the Ring of Kerry, up into Glencar, back into Lauragh, up into the pocket in Glenmore and down into the Black Valley. If he thinks he is in rural Ireland, I will show him what rural Ireland is. The Minister mentioned 38 buses nationwide in his initiative. Why did he not try this first? I do not think 38 buses would cater for half of Kerry not to mind all of it. The Government should be encouraging people to live in rural areas not trying to get them out of it.

The Minister is welcome to come to Kerry at any time but he should ensure his car will not break down on the Ring of Kerry or on the top of Beale or at Kelly's Cross because I would be very afraid he would be there for a long time before anyone would pick him up if he is going to inflict this terrible rule and regulation for which there is no need in the world. I do not think anyone would tow him into Teddy McCarthy's garage in Sneem to get him going again because this is terrible. It is nothing to laugh about. It is a serious matter to be without one's car in rural Ireland. One has no hope of surviving without it.

It emerged at the Oireachtas committee that many people in rural areas are driving in the 20 mg bracket. The Minister did not know it when I said it to him. Many people in rural areas travel in vans, small tractors and jeeps and they are restricted to having less than 20 mg. The Minister said he would look into the matter, deal with it and sort it out because it is very unfair if one has only one vehicle and that means one is subject to the lower blood alcohol limit. The Minister did not know about that and I think he has forgotten about it.

It is very sad to think the Minister is going to do this to the fine people I represent in places like the Black Valley, Beaufort, Lauragh, Glenmore, Gleninchaquin, Tureencahill, Reanasup, Knocknaboul, Gleantan, Doctors Hill, Mangerton, Shandrom, Lomanagh, Clydagh Bridge, Loo Bridge, Dromtine, Bohocogram, Letterfinish and Sneem. It is sad to think of all the lovely people affected. I will give the Minister an example of one man but I will not say where he is. He is a 93-year old man who cuts his own turf. He worked for the State for 47 years. He is still working. He is living alone. He sets his own garden and does everything for himself. He washes his clothes. He drives to the pub to have two pints three times a week. If the Minister is going to deny him that I certainly will not be on the Minister's side and will never again look at the side of the road he is on because it would be a serious thing to do that to such a man, to deny him having his two pints. He cannot walk along the side of the road to the pub I am talking about, and there is no taxi. He knows it is safer to drive his car.

There is no mention about all the cyclists and pedestrians who have been killed because the roads are not fit for them. The 93-year old man goes to the pub for his couple of pints two or three nights a week. He will be stopped although he never broke the law in his life. Three pints were sufficient.

I know a man, a fine farmer. He was bagged ten years ago and he only had two glasses of Harp. He has not gone to his local since. The fright of God is on people in case they might lose their licence.

I appeal to the Minister not to do this. It appears that he has Sinn Féin and Fine Gael on his side and that he can do it if he wants. I can tell those Deputies without fear that many of them go into farmers' yards and rural yards. They have gone into them over the years, as did the people who came before them. They will get a rude awakening. Fine Gael is supposed to be up so many points in the opinion polls but that is probably here in Dublin and urban areas. Anyway, they will get a rude awakening and so will Sinn Féin Deputies if this is what they will do to the people who elected them - they are letting those people down.

The law was strict enough. It is more than people have in the North of Ireland and England and more than they have in France. They pay a fine there in cases concerning levels between 50 mg and 80 mg. If the Minister wants to paralyse and isolate the people he has the power to do it but I will remind him of it every day that I am inside the Chamber.

There is much lip service about rural Ireland and that we are going to do this and that for it. All that has been done so far is talk. Pain, misery and misfortune are all the Minister is putting on people there. I am sad to think of all the grand letters the Minister wrote in newspapers over the past year. The Minister wrote a nasty letter about me down in Kerry when he had nothing else to do in the middle of the summer but the people did not think much of it. The Minister may write more but the people will think less of it and they will think more of me because of what the Minister is doing to them. I am defending them and I make no apology to the Minister, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin or anyone else.

This should not be put on the people of rural Ireland at all. I do not condone drink-driving and I never have. I have taken the keys off several fellows. I know what a pint and a half-pint will do to anyone. It does not impair their driving and I know it. Maybe the Minister does not know it, but I do because I have been behind the counter and going around the bars for long enough. I know that a pint or a half-pint has never been the cause of an accident. If the Minister cannot make a name for himself in any other way than by having this tagged to his name or if he cannot make a man out of himself other than by doing this to rural Ireland, then it is a sad day. The Minister has many other things that he could do but he takes the easy way out.

The Minister referred to bus links but he said he had nothing to do with buses when the country was at a standstill. At the time, the Minister was peeping out the window but he would not look at them or come out to sort it out. He was the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport at the time. The Minister has given over to Deputy Heydon the task of talking about rural link buses because he could not say he would do something about it as he is supposed to have nothing to do with buses. That is what the Minister told us. If the trains stop, the Minister has nothing to do with them either.

I am sorry, but I tell it as it is. The people are totally angered. What the Minister is doing is not necessary. I do not believe anyone asked the Minister for it; he thought of it himself. The Minister should stop it now while he can. If he puts this through, many people in Fine Gael and Sinn Féin have stated they will support it. I promise the Minister that they will regret it because they will get it around every door and corner. I have no problem in telling them what the Minister is doing because it is wrong.

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