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

I want no impudence from Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. This is absolutely ridiculous. What the Government is actually proposing to do to people that have to travel in motor cars day in and day out is the height of blackguarding. It wants to reduce the speed limit on the road from Mallow to Rathmore to Killarney and back around the Ring of Kerry from 100 km/h down to 80 km/h. It wants people driving up against each other and rear-ending each other. As Deputy Michael Healy-Rae said, they will be frustrated morning, noon and night. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest doing this.

I accept there are things wrong. The Minister must recognise that there is a massive increase in the volume of traffic on our roads and to deal with that we have to increase the capacity and adjust our roads to make them safer.

Dangerous junctions are not being addressed. If there is a pond of water, when it is late at night and there is a car coming against you, you cannot see where you are going and you drive into it. Trees are falling down on people. A branch fell on someone in a car this year and killed them. What we should do about that now is cut the trees and make sure that no tree is within falling distance of the road but the response is to increase penalty points and reduce the speed limit. They are great lads all right. Fianna Fáil is listening to this and they are going to support it. That is what they are doing.

We could be educating our youngsters who have started to go on the road and do a lot more with them. We could teach them and show them the wrongs and the rights. The Government should be doing more about that.

The Killarney bypass has been stalled. It has been going on for 24 years. At the present time there are six dangerous junctions where people have been killed, maimed and slaughtered, yet the Government will not put the new bypass around it so that these junctions would not be dealing with the current levels of traffic. It is because the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, wants people cycling. He does not want people on roads. He does not want to build roads. He does not want to improve them or do anything to help the people.

A very serious thing is happening that we all hear about every day. It is when someone is trying to turn right and there is a line of cars behind them because there is a line of cars coming against the first car and it cannot turn right. The next thing is that some fellow who is four or five cars back comes up and the fellow who was at the front trying to turn right is blown away by a car because he does not know what is happening. That needs to be addressed.

I gave an idea to the RSA a few years ago on how to resolve the problem. What the cars behind the car turning right should all be taught to do is to put on their right indicator so that everyone in the line knows that someone is turning right. It was a bus driver who told me that. The RSA is not doing anything about that. What it is going to do is increase the penalty points and reduce the speed limits. That is absolutely ridiculous. The Government is doing nothing but blackguarding. The sooner it is put out of this place the better. The people are waiting for them, whether they come on a bike or in a car.

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