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

I sympathise with all the families who have lost loved ones due to drunk driving. I emphasis "drunk driving", however, because I do not believe that someone who has consumed a pint, or a pint and a half, and is under 80 mg is a drunk driver. The Minister is on some kind of a crusade and does not have constituents in rural areas who depend on their car to get to work, college or anywhere. In rural Ireland there are no other means of transport and there has been no attempt to ensure people can be catered for in this way. If a mother or father go to work but lose their licence, as Deputies Troy and Michael Healy-Rae said, as a result of having more than 50 mg in their blood tomorrow morning they can lose everything, because without a licence in rural Ireland they cannot get anywhere or do anything. They have to be driven everywhere and that is too costly. It is hard to get a licence back and it is hard to get insurance again.

I am sorry that the Minister described me as a "road traffic terrorist" and spoke of me and my "gang" in some other forum today. I have a family at home and I do not think the Minister would like to be called a terrorist. I will deal with that in another fashion and I have sought legal advice. I never hurt or harmed anybody and never thought I would be so described. I have a licence to drive every vehicle on the road and I am proud of that. I got my first licence to drive a tractor aged 16 and did a driving test in a motor car, a rigid lorry, an articulated lorry and a large coach. I am licensed to pull a trailer after a coach and I am proud of that too. I am very hurt by being called a terrorist and the Minister will answer to someone, somewhere, as to what he means by that because I am not letting it go. Maybe the Minister has lost the run of himself because there was mention of some of them going to Korea to sort terrorists out there.

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