Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this very important Bill. At first, to be honest, I grappled with the Bill, but I stand here as a parliamentarian faced with a very simple choice. There has probably been an element of muddying of the waters in this debate, particularly on the part of the Opposition, and I will touch on those points in a while. We have a simple choice. Do we support a Bill that does not change the blood alcohol concentration limit at which someone who is driving breaks the law but instead changes the penalty in respect of this offence, or do we vote against the Bill and potentially send out a message that we as a Parliament are saying drink-driving - people driving on our roads while impaired and not in full possession of their senses and who could meet me, a loved one of mine or someone else close to me on those roads - is okay in this country? This is a very stark choice. Broken down in these simple terms, I will support the Bill. We should consider the message we would send nationally and internationally if we were to choose the latter option. Internationally, we think of our tourists, who want to come here on holiday and drive the Wild Atlantic Way. The message could come out that they could meet people who drink and drive home from pubs and that they should be careful when on our roads. These are the very simple messages. We are all about simple messages here and this is how a decision to oppose the Bill could be translated. If the Bill saves just one life, that is one whole family and extended circle of friends that will be saved the anguish and horror of a death on our roads which, particularly when caused by a drink-driver, is so avoidable. Therefore, I stand here with an absolutely clear conscience that supporting the Bill is the right thing to do.

I referred to muddying of the waters. There has been talk of old men in their 90s who live in isolated rural areas and travel to the local pub three nights a week for two pints at a time and leave it at that. The focus of this debate has been all on the right of that man to have his couple of pints and then drive his car home. The question has been asked, what harm is it. We have been told such people have done so for years, that we should let them go and that they will never cause an accident. There are a number of parts to this argument. Fair play to the old man who is that disciplined because I, for one, have been in situations in which I have gone for one, but one was actually one round because I was with a friend, which makes two, and then all of a sudden someone buys a third pint. The car has been out of the equation since the first pint but there is a second. This pressure rolls on and if one does not have a backup plan as to how one gets home, if one lives in an area in which taxis are not available, all of a sudden one is in that spot because it was not planned for accordingly. An awful lot of this is about planning and preparation. Instead of the focus being on that man being entitled to drink his few pints and drive home, we should get to the nub of the problem that the man is living on his own, is lonely and is suffering in social isolation.

I am delighted that the Bill has brought forward into the House this discussion about the challenges we face in rural Ireland. This debate should be about the fact that there are plenty of people living in rural Ireland who cannot access taxis or easily get about and the majority of whom do not want to have a drink. My mother is a retired woman in her 70s. She is very active and loves to play whist and bridge. That is her thing. She is never out later than 11 o'clock at night, but her and her friends, particularly at this time of the year, are out playing for turkeys every night of the week. Luckily enough, she is able to drive to such events, but sometimes she will bring friends and neighbours who do not have lifts. Not everyone is always lucky enough to have someone who can pick them up and bring them home. I welcome that this issue of social isolation is being brought to the fore. However, when we talk about rural transport, something about which I am passionate, as the Minister is aware, we allow the debate get sucked into the topic of what the people will use the bus for and, when they get to the rural destination on the rural bus, what they will do. We never ask this question when Dublin Bus announces additional routes or when Bus Éireann runs extra routes from Limerick to Galway but somehow we get fixated on what these people will do in this regard. I will tell the House what they will do. We should consider where the Local Link rural bus services are working really well, such as in south Kildare with the Athy-Newbridge route that goes through small rural areas such as Kildangan, Kilberry and Nurney. We should consider the very extensive list of routes in the Kerry area, with which I have become very familiar in recent times. I refer to Carmel Walsh and the great Local Link team down there. They offer such a wide array of services and access for people in rural areas. Our problem currently is that most of these routes finish at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock in the day and that there is no access in the evenings. In the summertime, if there were more routes operational in the evenings, people could go down into their villages to see the local GAA club play a match and get that bus back home afterwards. They might go for a pint and they are free to do so if they want - it is a free country - or they might want to go play bingo or cards or just call on other elderly relatives and friends who also live alone. What we want to do, and what we should be focused on as a Government, is to improve this access in order that people can move around their areas as best they can. That is why I am trying to move the conversation on from what is a very narrow debate here to what is a much more important and much broader one.

In ten, 15 or 20 years' time, I think we will look back on this debate and be shocked by some of the arguments made, in the same way as we look back 20 years and see the adverts that say "don't drive with five" because it was fine to drive after having drunk four pints back then. We laugh now to think that was so acceptable. Similarly, people will look back on this debate we are having about how much drink-driving is okay. It will not be socially acceptable. It is probably already not socially acceptable in large parts of the country, even though Members of this House are making that argument now. In time we will see that debate move on.

This is why, as chairman of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party, I engage with the Minister on the issue of social isolation. I accept in our dealings that he definitely wants to bring about improvements to this in rural Ireland and I have been impressed by his response to the issue and the engagement I know he has had with a number of rural groups. He has taken on board their points and concerns about the Bill. The Bill has opened up a conversation about a much bigger issue. I engage with the Local Link rural bus transport network to see how we can take what is a very good model with huge potential and make it better. Working with Local Link, we came up with an initial proposal of 38 routes across 12 Local Link companies in 15 counties. Donegal, Tipperary and Sligo-Leitrim-Roscommon - there is one Local Link for the latter three counties - also have proposals for consideration to be submitted to the Minister and the NTA. This is not a silver bullet; it is a very significant pilot proposal that, were it to be funded and enacted, would provide more than 11,000 additional trips around rural Ireland per annum. This would allow people go play cards or bingo, carry out visitations, go to the pub or do whatever else they want to do and would increase flexibility. So much of what is at the heart of rural transport is that it ends up being community-led, so why are we here saying there is no point in putting on buses in certain areas because there is no activity in those areas? It is a chicken and egg scenario. There is no activity in the village because no one who lives in the rural hinterland surrounding it can get into the village. However, Carmel Walsh in Kerry Local Link or Alan Kerry in Kildare will say that once this discussion came about, the Irish Countrywomen's Association, ICA, in parts of Kerry became involved. There was a group from Valentia Island that wanted to go dancing in Killarney. They inquired about the proposal of a late evening bus from Valentia to Portmagee that would then link them up with a bigger bus that would bring them into Ireland's National Event Centre, the INEC, in Killarney. If a man nearby wants to get on that bus and go for a pint, more luck to him, or if a couple want to go out for a meal or to the cinema, who cares? The fact is we have provided for accessibility into a remote part of rural Ireland, probably one of the remotest any of us could think of. These are lovely places to visit during the summer, but at this time of the year, with long, dark evenings, they are lonely places to live on one's own. These are the kinds of ideas we should consider. We have a co-funded HSE rural community project that does visitations to people who live on their own. The group was considering organising an event whereby 12 or 14 people would come together in Ballylongford in north Kerry and improve accessibility for these people. This happens already in Lyracrumpane, where about 15 people get together once a week for a game of cards, facilitated by the rural transport network. This brings a flexibility to their activities.

I was on local radio in Kerry recently because I was the subject of some criticism in respect of this proposal. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, unfortunately, ran to a journalist to attack the proposal, presumably before he realised that his constituency in Kerry would be the biggest beneficiary of the proposal, with 15 of the 38 routes. While he was critical in the Irish Independent, the Minister will be happy to hear that he clarified on Radio Kerry in a debate with me that he was very supportive of the proposal and I am sure he will put that support on the record of the House in the not too distant future.

He was keen to tell the people of Kerry how much he supports rural transport, which I am sure is the case. Meanwhile, his brother, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, had a pop at me in the House last week, claiming that I do not understand rural Ireland and that no part of County Kildare can be described as rural. In fairness to him, he invited me to visit the Ring of Kerry and other rural parts of the county. Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said on a previous occasion that this Government does not recognise anything outside the M50. Perhaps Danny Healy-Rae is under the confused impression that all of Kildare is inside the M50.

As a member of a rural community in south Kildare and having been a farmer before I was a Deputy, as chairman of Fine Gael's agriculture committee for five years and a member of the Oireachtas joint committee dealing with rural affairs for the past two years, I assure the Deputy that we do have rural areas in south Kildare. Indeed, the challenges for people in Bigstone, Carbury, Levitstown and Ballymore Eustace are every bit as real as those facing people in Kerry, Mayo or Donegal. I do not need to take the Deputy up on of his offer to visit Kerry as I have holidayed there several times and hope to go again next August with my family. If I am driving around Kerry with my wife in the passenger seat and my two children in the back, I do not want to encounter a driver who has had three, four or five pints, no matter how large a dinner he or she might have had. I return Deputy Danny Healy-Rae's offer by inviting him to visit south Kildare. I understand Kerry but he does not seem to have much understanding of my county. If he takes up my offer, he will see that we share many of the same struggles and hold the same position on many issues. The problem is that the debate has become skewed and there is political point-scoring going on in some quarters.

I am passionate about rural transport and the potential it has to improve the quality of life of people living in rural areas. In many ways, we are only scratching the surface with the existing provision. Of the 17 Local Link companies in operation, I am the first to acknowledge that some are more proactive and better developed than others. If the pilot scheme I have proposed is given a chance, over the course of six months or a year we will see passenger numbers matching those on the Athy to Newbridge route in south Kildare and other successful routes across the country. By opening up access to rural transport in the evenings, we offer whole communities a new lease of life. This is not about getting people to and from the pub but, rather, connecting communities. A previous speaker noted that an bord snip nua, which was established during the recession under the chairmanship of Mr. Colm McCarthy, recommended that the then allocation of €11 million for rural transport should be reduced. I was one of the advocates arguing that rural transport was, in fact, one of the national programmes that offered best value for money. I remain convinced of that and, as such, welcome the increase in funding to €17 million. That investment is coming back to us fourfold.

There remains a great deal more to be done. In Kildare we are fortunate to have a very good director of services for transport as well as supportive councillors. Next year, local property tax revenues will be used to put branding on Local Link buses and develop bus shelters in designated locations. The National Transport Authority has given the go-ahead to the Kildare-South Dublin Local Link service to install 41 lollipop-sign bus stops and advertise the timetables. These sound like simple things but, as it stands, the service is too ad hocto be as successful as it can be. Some €15,000 has been put aside to trial a system next year, which will engage a number of local hackney drivers to provide an extended service to rural areas in County Kildare. People often complain about the difficulty of getting a taxi, but the problem is that everybody wants to avail of the service at the same time of the week, usually a Friday or Saturday night. The local hackney driver in my area, Donie King, is often subjected to complaints because, at the most popular times, it can take him two hours to get to a job, if he can do it at all. However, he has a much smaller workload during the week. Under the trial arrangement, drivers like Donie King will be paid a retainer to remain on stand-by to accommodate people in rural areas who cannot otherwise access rural transport. This means that Mrs. Murphy, who does not live on the linear route from Athy to Newbridge but is within 5 km of it, can telephone Local Link to say she needs to get to Newbridge the next day. The hackney driver will call to her house and take her to the Local Link bus. Her business might be in Newbridge, in Naas General Hospital or in Dublin, but the connectivity is now there to allow her to make her journey via public transport. If we invest adequately in the services, there is great potential there for the future.

As I said, we have only scraped the surface of what can be achieved. Enhancing transport services is the single greatest action we can take to address quality of life issues in rural areas. Colleagues will recall that The Gathering initiative was successful not because people in Dublin issued instructions about it but because rural communities across the length and breadth of the country embraced it as the great idea it was. I recall that I was driving to a meeting in Kilcullen the same day we had the media reports of how Gabriel Byrne had ridiculed the whole idea of The Gathering. Expecting to encounter a cool response at the meeting, I instead found great enthusiasm among members of the local community and a determination to get involved in encouraging expatriates who were born in the area to return for a visit. That initiative worked because people all over the country bought into it and the same can be achieved in the area of rural transport. Enabling groups of people to travel to a central point and engage in social activities together is good for communities. The Government will never fix all the problems of rural areas and the Opposition will always attack it on that basis. It is our job to enable rural communities to become more self-sufficient by helping themselves. One way of doing so is to address the deficit in public transport that exists in rural Ireland. I hope my proposal receives a positive hearing because it has huge merit as an extensive pilot. If it proves successful, it can be rolled out throughout the country. I thank the Minister for his engagement on this matter and look forward to further engagement with him in the future.

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