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

I am totally opposed to provisional drivers being added to the Bill because it will affect young fellows in rural Ireland. The Minister need not shake his head because it will affect them. It has already affected one young fellow in Killorglin and a few more in different places. He lost his apprenticeship because he could not get to work. His father and mother could not allow him to take the car any more. They would not take the chance on the journey from Killorglin to Kenmare. Now he is at home and he has no prospect of getting another job. I am opposed to this measure.

Several other measures could have been put into the Bill that would help these young drivers, and every young fellow should get one chance. I believe people are entitled to get a chance in this world. We could fit the cars with speed limits and other modern techniques could be used to monitor people's driving and if they went over a certain agreed limit, they would not get insurance or their licence renewed. We could have gone down several other roads, but what the Minister wants to do is to paralyse and isolate them, keep them at home and give them no chance. It is very unfair. The Minister does not care because he is here in a cosy spot in Dublin where he can get at taxi, a DART or a bus. I do not begrudge people in the city who can do things like this, but people in rural places like Killorglin, Glencar, Cahersiveen or Lauragh have no other way to travel without a car. This is the gospel truth and we are not making up lies. I am defending their right to have one chance to go on the road. If they do not get that chance, it is wrong, and the Minister is wrong in what he is doing.

Why is the Minister trying to criminalise honest good living people in rural Ireland who have never done anything wrong to anyone? It is sad to think people who are lonely will be made more lonely and more isolated because if people lose their licence in rural Ireland, they are stranded and cannot go to work or go to the shop. With the Minister's new Bill, people will have no opportunity because he suggests people will be put off the road if they are caught in the 50 mg to 80 mg blood alcohol bracket. There is no need whatsoever for this. I asked the Minister at a committee meeting to prove the necessity for this, and he gave instances of cases from 2008 to 2012 and stated that in those four years 36 people were killed in incidents involving alcohol. He did not come out and individualise the cases and prove it was not someone walking along the footpath after having a few pints and stepping in front of a driver who had no drink at all. Could it have been the case that a young fellow who had one pint and was not over the drink-driving limit at the time met black ice and hit a bridge or a pole? Could it have been cases like this? The Minister never proved it. He said data protection would not allow him to give the cases.

I am saying to him, to everyone in the Gallery and to anyone who is listening that anyone who drank a pint and a half pint never caused a fatality or an accident. No one in the 50 mg to 80 mg bracket caused a fatality. Is this the price the Minister extracted from the Fine Gael Government? Is this what he got from Fine Gael, to be allowed to introduce these draconian measures? The Fine Gael Deputies, who are not here, have traditionally gone into farmyards and places in rural Ireland and rural Kerry and have got votes there, but I can tell the Minister that if he is anywhere near them they will get no vote at the next election, whenever it will be, because he is hurting people who never did anything wrong to anyone.

It is sad to think that a farmer coming home from the mart will not be able to come into the pub to have one pint or maybe a pint and a half pint to tell people what he got for his animals or how the day went for him. All of this will be gone. People will have to stay inside at home. They will be like rabbits inside a burrow when the fox or the harrier is around. They are afraid to peep out because some fellow like the Minister will be outside. This is no laughing matter. This is what the Minister is doing to people in rural Ireland. He is paralysing and isolating them and treating them like dirt. The Minister has the facilities here. He has buses, taxis, DARTs, trains and everything else at any hour of the day or night that he wants. This is not available to people in rural Ireland. This is what he and the Government that has him there as a Minister are going to do to the people of rural Ireland.

I am sad it has come to this. I have tabled an amendment and I will move it when the opportunity arises. This is the most hurtful and serious issue. There has been a lot of talk since I came up here about rural Ireland, but it is only lipservice because everything the Government does hurts the people in rural Ireland. Whether the Government realises it or not, that is what it is doing. It is hurting the people in rural Ireland and the grand people in Lauragh, the Black Valley, Glencar and Knocknagoshel. Let every man talk for his own county and I will talk for mine. This is what the Government is doing to the people. It is hurtful and I can tell the Minister, because the people will tell him themselves, they hate him down there and they will never forget what he is doing to them.

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