Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A man when he was asked for directions in a rural area said, "Well, if was going there, I wouldn't start from here". Likewise, if I had been talking about this Bill before it was introduced, I might have taken a different attitude. It has been introduced and is in the public arena for debate. No matter what way we look at it, a decision has to be made. The decision, in turn, will have an impact on our attitude as elected representatives to the issue of drink-driving. In those circumstances, we are running out of options.

Many years ago I repeatedly raised the need for statistics on traffic accidents, in particular on roads with recurring incidences of deaths over ten, 15 or 20 years. In one location in my constituency, more than 25 fatal accidents have taken place at the same junction or the same part of the road.

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That draws people's attention to the cause of such accidents. I am not aware of the cause in that particular area. I do not believe that any one of the people involved was over the limit or had any drink taken. It is simply one of those things that happen. We cannot eliminate accidents entirely but we can eliminate some of the causes and it is our duty to so do to the best of our ability. In this instance, it affects rural life to a greater extent than city life mainly because of transport issues but also because of rural depopulation. The transport facilities are not available. Taxis and late night buses are not available in rural Ireland because there is not the population to justify providing them. That population has been decreasing for many years. The Opposition Members will say the current Government or the previous one depopulated rural areas. That is not the case and the former Minister opposite knows well that the population has been decreasing for many years. Planners had an impact on it also because as we all know, and we must criticise them from time to time, planning policy in rural Ireland has been to limit to a huge extent the number of people who wish to live in rural Ireland. I refer to the indigenous local population, which has been scaled down gradually over many years to the extent that we have arrived in a situation where the economics of providing the ancillary services we normally expect and enjoy in towns and cities no longer obtain and it is no longer viable to present that. We should keep that at the back of our minds as we talk about this particular subject.

We need to examine the problems that make life more difficult in rural Ireland and the difficulties that this or other legislation creates in rural Ireland. Transport is one of those. My colleague, Deputy Heydon, has set up an initiative to co-ordinate a number of Rural Link services in such a way as to provide transport - not necessarily for socialising but for necessary travel - that people in rural Ireland are as entitled to expect to be able to avail of as are their colleagues in the city areas. It is not easy to do that but it is possible and it must be done independently of the subject under discussion. If not, it will be seen as a means of continuing to support what is known now as a drink culture.

That said, we must also accept that all people, tourists included, like to enjoy the hospitality of the country and the cities but there is no question but that it is easier to do so in the cities than it is in rural areas. Whether we want to support the development of the tourism industry and other industries in rural parts of the country is a matter for ourselves. We can turn our backs on that or we can do something about it. I believe we have to do something about improving the social fabric and the quality and level of services such as co-ordination of the Rural Link transport system and any other means whereby we can affect positively the attractiveness of rural Ireland and its services that, within reason, must be on a par with those available elsewhere. That is a challenge but, nonetheless, it must be done. If we do not do it, we will have a continued erosion of the quality of life in rural Ireland. It was stated that the Garda stations have closed down. That is the case in both urban and rural Ireland. That is not a point for the Minister but a fact of life that they have closed.

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