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

I too sympathise with the nurses who are on strike today. I ask the Taoiseach to ensure that they get properly paid and remunerated for the work they do.

I again wish to raise the Road Traffic (Amendment) Act with the Taoiseach which has changed rural Ireland forever. The social fabric that was known to the people of rural Ireland has been blown to smithereens.

Before, during and since Christmas, many people found they could not come out, socialise, meet their friends and do the things they have traditionally done since the foundation of the State. Transport was promised. Rural Link was to get funding. Now we find it is still on a trial basis and is only funded until the end of March. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, and Deputy Heydon promised they would provide plenty of funding for transport, yet there has been no extension of services as promised. What we do have is plenty of Garda checks. It is not the gardaí who are to blame, because direction is coming from on high. This is happening across every county and every Garda division. People are being checked going to and coming from Mass. Last week an elderly man was stopped coming home from Mass with his invalided wife. What is going on is absolutely ridiculous. People taking their children to school in the morning and women who never drank are being stopped. They are outraged at what is happening. The Government has turned the people against the Garda with its instructions and directions. That is what is happening.

I have to clarify one thing. Eight of us voted against the Bill because it was wrong. Some 75 Deputies voted for it and 74 abstained. I must correct Deputy Brassil, who said on Radio Kerry this morning that Fianna Fáil abstained. That is not true. Some 11 Fianna Fáil Deputies voted for the Bill. That is the truth. The rest abstained. Fianna Fáil abandoned the people who voted for it over the years. Part of the Bill hits drivers with provisional licences. Young people cannot drive unaccompanied. These youngsters need a car to go to school or college, to work at an apprenticeship or to go to sports training.

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