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

The Taoiseach is marching on with Deputy Ross's Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill in order to please him or to pay him back for making up the numbers. It is not for the work he has done or for what he has achieved as a Minister.

I welcome that more rural bus link services have been announced by Deputy Heydon. They will be a help to towns and villages at certain times. However, 38 buses will not service all of rural Ireland. I am amazed that Deputy Heydon, being from County Kildare, claims to be a rural Deputy. If I were to take him and the Minister, Deputy Ross, to rural Kerry and leave them in the Black Valley or the Pocket in Glanmore without satnav, neither would arrive in Killarney in time for their Christmas dinner. The service discussed by Deputy Heydon is only a camouflage. Members of Fine Gael are supporting the Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill and sacrificing the people in rural Ireland. I ask the Government to drop the Bill because it is not rural-proofed and does not explain how those it will make more lonely and isolated will manage. The Government has no proposal to deal with that. Deputy Heydon said the Bill was to ensure that when people such as the Deputy and his wife go to Kerry, they will not get hit by a driver who has had three or four pints. I want the Deputy to withdraw that remark because no driver does that in Kerry.

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