Dáil debates

Wednesday, 13 June 2018

Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed)

 

8:00 pm

Photo of Michael Healy-RaeMichael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this. I am sorry to say that I was unhappy with what the Minister said in the first place and I am still unhappy with his response to Deputy Fitzmaurice. We need to go back to the nub of the argument the Minister is making with regard to this proposal. The Minister is making an assumption that an accident involving an unaccompanied driver would not have happened if he or she had a fully qualified driver with them. I cannot agree with the criminalising and the targeting of young people.

I will say one thing about our young people. Every one of us had to start somewhere, whether it was driving a motorcar or a tractor, or getting up on a digger. Every one of us had to do something for the first time. None of us came into this world being able to perform the tasks that we might do now at our ease. Everybody has to start somewhere. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Minister is targeting our young people - the people we cherish, the people we want to stay here, the people we want to encourage to work.

What about young people in the constituency I am very proud to represent, living down in Tuosist or in Valentia Island or any part of Kerry, be it east, north, south or west, if they are fortunate enough to get a bit of a part-time job or want to go helping an uncle or an aunt? If it means travelling a bit and if they want to make a bit of money, is the Minister seriously saying they must pass the test at a time when they are told they cannot have their test because they have to wait? In saying that, I want to compliment the people carrying out the tests in Kerry, but unfortunately they are not being given the resources to allow them to carry out tests in a reasonable length of time and that is why people have to wait for too long.

What the Minister is telling these people who need to travel, whether it is going to college to further their education, get on in life and get their leg up on the ladder or whether it is to go to work? The Minister and his colleagues in government and the people who support them who come from rural areas, often go into and out of the farmyards that the Minister spoke about a while ago. When an election is called, they will go into those yards and will seriously look at those parents and say, "Well, we're the people who supported Minister Ross when he wanted to criminalise you, we backed him, we voted for him and the whole way of life of your young people is being upset because of what has been done inside in Dáil Éireann."

I am extremely sorry for any person who loses his or her life on our roads. None of us wants to see a parent losing anybody belonging to them. We do not want to see anybody dying on our roads. However, unfortunately it has happened and always will happen, despite everybody's best efforts quite simply because accidents do happen. To try to put this down on young people and say that it is okay to pass this provision and target young people, that it is okay to paralyse them and leave them in such a way - the Minister should think about the practicality of what he is suggesting. On the one hand they cannot sit the test, because the place is not there for them to sit the test immediately when they want to. So they have a provisional licence. The Minister is saying then that if they are getting up early in the morning and if they have a job or if in the evening time they get work and want to go work, they cannot drive to work.

They have to get their mother, father, aunt, uncle or somebody else with a full licence to sit in with them. This may work in this city where people have many transport options but in the county I represent we do not have those methods of transport. If a parent in Boheshill or Glencar wants to send a young person out to work or, more importantly, the young person wants to go himself or herself, how is he or she supposed to do so? It is not practical or sensible that a parent would have to accompany that person. The current system is working. It is not broken. Trying to blame every accident on young people is not fair or right.

As I said earlier, everyone of us had to start somewhere. In rural areas, in particular on farms, the younger a person sits behind the wheel of a car the better. I am speaking in this regard of off-road driving. The younger he or she is trained the better. One cannot buy that type of training. The first time a young person reared in an urban area might sit behind the wheel of a car is when he or she obtains a provisional licence. I believe this person is at a disadvantage in comparison with the person who might have had an opportunity to sit behind the wheel of a car from a very young age, accompanied, perhaps, by a parent explaining how the car works. Everyone in my family learned to drive off-road at a very young age, as did my own children. All of my children were capable of driving from a very young age. If they were not, there would have been something drastically and radically wrong. The longer children in rural areas are driving in farmyards and off-road the better because it is educational and good for them. It prepares them for travelling on the road. I recognise that not everybody has that opportunity, which is all the worse for them.

In terms of what the Minister is trying to do, I am sorry for the people of Ireland who are upset by it. The Minister is not 100% at fault in this regard because he could not do this without the backing of the Government, which he is supporting, along with some Opposition Deputies, which they are perfectly entitled to do. All Deputies have their own mandates. They are here representing people but they seem to be representing a different group of people to those I represent. As the Minister knows, I am working on the ground every day of the week from early morning to late at night seven days per week. I adore the job of representing the people of Kerry. As long as they continue to elect me, I will speak on their behalf. As I said, I believe what the Minister is doing is hurtful. Time will prove what he is doing to be wrong. Despite his best efforts there will continue to be accidents. To insinuate that a young driver will not be involved in an accident when accompanied by a person with a full licence is wrong and misguided. The Minister is misleading people and he is going after young people when he should not be doing so.

If I had all night I could not explain how hurtful and wrong this is. I plead with the Minister to even at this late stage see the error of what he is doing and to understand it is wrong. I plead with him to relent and to listen to people who are proposing other options. There are other ways of dealing with these matters. For example, the Minister could come into this House tomorrow morning with proposals to properly resource driver testing centres so that people can have an opportunity to sit their driver test at the earliest opportunity and if they fail it they will have the opportunity to take a retest almost immediately. Practical, sensible measures such as this would make sense.

Unfortunately, when it comes to road safety we have gone crazy. For example, when lorries and buses are tested and certified roadworthy they can be stopped on the road the following day and rechecked, which does not make sense. Unfortunately, authorities such as the Road Safety Authority, RSA, and the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, which were set up with good intentions, are losing the run of themselves. When it comes to road safety people operating businesses, be it buses, lorries or hackneys, have to negotiate many hoops. We all want to ensure that vehicles that are operated for reward meet all safety standards and are certified roadworthy but even when these vehicles are tested and certified roadworthy they can be hauled in for a recheck. This is a money making racket. It is about time somebody in the Minister's position examined what is happening to these law abiding, decent people who are keeping this Government and the country going. These people are self employed and providing jobs for many other people and they are being terrorised in their businesses.

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