Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

Senator Mullen is correct that it is important to make a distinction between graduated penalties and graduated offences. I accept that. The limit will go to 50 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood for most drivers and that is a low limit. As Senator O'Neill noted, it will probably be less than a pint of beer, depending on the size of the person in question and other factors. The evidence is that impairment kicks in around those levels, although any amount of alcohol will cause some impairment.

When these lower limits were introduced in some of the states of Australia, there was a 10% reduction in deaths. I hope we will be ready to go with these for the bank holiday weekend and the instruments will be calibrated for that reason. I am not closed to the possibility that at a later stage, after we see how the limit operates, we can consider a limit of 20 mg for all drivers.