Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will not allow us to be called circus or circus clowns or be told to look in the mirror as those Members opposite cannot do so themselves. I represent a cohort of people who want to be able to live in the country, finish their education there and to have some modicum of rural life. They do not want to be isolated or sitting, as the former Tánaiste, Deputy Burton, said looking at iPhones. They want to get out there into the jobs market and finish their education like the people in Dublin. I do not stop the people in Dublin or other cities having it. Let them do what they do. We are entitled. Fair play is fine play with me. That is all I am looking for and no more. I want them to be allowed sit the driving tests.

Some argue I am not dealing with the matter. However, what if one cannot get a test? Take John, who I had mentioned earlier, who failed his test today. He cannot reapply for a month. Cen fáth? Why can he not reapply immediately online and get it in a reasonable time? I am a small businessman, as are Teachtaí Michael Healy-Rae and Michael Collins. If we could not do a job today and told the customer it would be a month later, we would not be long in business. This is a monopoly and it is ridiculous. The Minister is interested in sorting it out. I heard yesterday some eminent gentlemen from the Road Safety Authority, RSA, say on the radio that, if this Bill is passed, it would employ 160 new testers. Why can it not employ them beforehand? Why do we have to wait until the Bill is passed? How many more carrots are going to be dangled in front of us?

I know what that is. I have figures from a parliamentary question I got from the Minister not so long ago. It stated the Department had recruited fewer than 20 and only half have been put in place. This has gone on over 18 months. What is the reason for the delay? Someone suggested to me that the trade unions are holding it up. What is going on? I asked that question but the Minister will not answer any question. I do not expect the Minister to be infallible and to know everything. However, he should know what is going on in his Department. It is chaos, bedlam and anarchy in his Department.

For any Deputy to stand up here to suggest that I or my colleagues were responsible for the 28 deaths on the roads in recent times is abhorrent and unbelievable. In future, the Minister should check those issues and not be hung up on two issues which are totally discriminatory against rural Ireland and rural dwellers. The Minister sat in Government formation talks with me for 60 days two years ago. We talked about rural-proofing legislation. The Minister did not know about it but his colleagues, such as Deputy Fitzmaurice, did. What do we get here? Legislation which is anti-rural, anti-young people and anti-elderly. This is naked and basic anti-young men and women. It prevents them achieving their full potential while criminalising them and their parents.

Will the Minister tell me why John cannot get a test in the next five or six days so he can try a second time? He can get some more tuition and lessons which will cost him a considerable amount of money. That is the business the testers are in. I salute them because it is needed. We had no lessons when I did my test and neither did the Minister. How many thousands of people got driving licences over the counter when we could not cope with testing? I think the Minister was in the Seanad at the time. I was not but it was during Ger Connolly's time as Minister of State with responsibility for licences a long time ago. The Minister is here long enough to know that. These people got their licences back then, no problem. However, young people do everything right, get lessons and their parents to show them how to drive, go to simulator tracks, get a car, get their insurance and try to get on the road but they fail their tests. They cannot even reapply for one month. In certain counties, the length of time they have to wait varies. However, it is up to five months in Tipperary. For six months, these young people will have to sit at home, watch television, doss around, lose a job or a place in college or eat cake as Marie Antoinette said. That is the Minister's attitude.

That is total discrimination against my people and the people of rural Ireland who I am paid here to represent. This is bad law and it should not be passed. It is unworkable. We then have the RSA presiding over that. The Minister was railing against the quangos and the quango queens but he appoints two more members to the authority without any accountability. I give the Minister credit for standing down the whole codology about linking the licence to the PPS number and the public services card. After €1.8 million was wasted, he pulled the plug on it. I commend him for that. Who has been reprimanded? Who has been disciplined?

I asked all Departments about the number of staff who have been disciplined or sacked. The only reply I got was from the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Deputy Regina Doherty. She informed me 13 people had been dismissed from her Department for a failure to act in the public good over a certain period. Has anyone in the RSA or the Department been disciplined or held to account for these failures? No, the Minister goes on dancing their merry tune, bringing in more silly legislation on top of what he already has, to placate them and make them justify their existence. We cannot get a test in Tipperary; one cannot reapply for a month. If one is disbarred from applying for a month, one should not be made a criminal.

I know people who have done their driving test ten times. The more times they do it, the worse it gets because it becomes a fear factor.

These young people in question, as well as some elderly people, are returned emigrants. If people are out of the country for four years, their licence lapses. They must do a theory test, driving lessons and apply for the test. I like to see foreign direct investment. We have 5,000 jobs in the greater Clonmel and Tipperary area. When these multinational people come here, do we insult them by insisting they do their theory tests to drive in Ireland? I wonder. I have never come across this. It is like other legislation with sweeteners. Is a blind eye turned to those industrialists who want to come here because we need them? Is it like the passports for sale scandal we had in the past? I wonder where the fairness in that is.

What have our people done to the Minister? What about Irish people? What has the Minister and his RSA advisers got against them? It is a kind of vendetta against them that they want to make criminals of them when they want to educate themselves, fulfil their employment dreams and when they want to facilitate the growing economy. People are needed to work as we are short of workers. What have they ever done to the Minister? I do not know.

It is a personal vendetta. The Minister just has a personal issue with these people as well as the ordinary folk in rural Ireland, who have little or no transport or any way of getting anywhere.

Then there are the huge issues of mental health. What impact is this having on the mental health of our young people? All kinds of courses are made available now, and all kinds of social workers and supports are put into educational facilities, workplaces, schools and sporting areas - rightly so. We must all be very conscious of mental health issues. What kind of a body blow is this to young John, who must give up his job and park the car he bought and in respect of which he has paid insurance? What kind of an impact will this have on his mental health? Let us think about that.

We are here passing legislation relating to mental health, wearing the green ribbon and raising issues of mental health. However, what kind of impact will this have on young men and women, or indeed older men and women who come back to Ireland, having spent perhaps 40 years abroad in the United States or elsewhere, and who are put through a theory test and a driving test, when they have driven in America and far busier places than Erin go bragh? Is anyone taking any cognisance of the impact this is having on these people and on hard-pressed families, parents and guardians? Does anyone have any understanding of, empathy for or interest in how this is affecting the parent who wants to get his or her kids motivated, get them out there, active and engaged, and get them on the road? If they are not on the road, they are condemned to waste time sitting in front of a computer - as if they have broadband. Many of them do not. They will mope around and their mental health will suffer directly because of actions the Minister is taking here. He dresses this up in flowery language, telling us it is for road safety and this and that.

The Minister will not back up his statistics. Deputy Kevin O'Keeffe is as láthair but has asked me to raise with the Minister a parliamentary question he has refused to answer about repeat offenders in respect of road traffic accidents. The Minister will not allow the question to be answered by his Department. I have the question here in my file and the reply from the Minister. Deputy O'Keeffe is unavailable - he will be in later - but he has asked me to find out from the Minister tonight why he will not put his money where his mouth is and tell us the reasons for this. The Minister refers to driving incidents. He has predicted on data from my county alone that the number of breathalyser tests carried out was exaggerated by 330%. I am straying a little now. I ask the Minister these questions in the context of the question he refuses to answer.

These are young people for whom I will die if I have to. They are entitled to a modicum of living standards, just as anyone in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Port Láirge nó aon bhaile eile is. Why are they going to be discriminated against? They will be discriminated against. They will be told that if they fail the test, they cannot reapply for a month. The first thing the Minister should do is allow them, the minute they leave the test centre, or even before they leave it, to reapply for another date. We should keep the spirit, the enthusiasm and the interest in being a good driver, qualified and law-abiding alive in them. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh sí. I am after saying that a few times. Praise the young and they will come along with us. However, to insult and denigrate them, like the Minister is doing, is disgusting, as far as I am concerned. His lack of engagement, empathy and any interest in helping them out, keeping them interested and active or getting them into the workforce is pathetic.

The Minister refuses and refuses and refuses to answer. As I said, I called on him before to explain the genesis of this legislation. He can say he has met the Clancy family and many others - I have no doubt but that he has and I appreciate that - but we were here earlier tonight talking about the Bail (Amendment) Bill. The Minister should talk to Deputy Jim O'Callaghan. We talked about repeat offenders. We saw Lucia O'Farrell here recently, thankfully. We saw the countless repeat offences that the driver of that car had. He was stopped at a checkpoint before killing Shane O'Farrell. Why does the Minister not redouble with the Minister for Justice and Equality the traffic corps to what it was? It is a help and an asset in areas where there is crime. The Minister should get the traffic corps-----

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