Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday I wanted to support the proposal for an All-Ireland soccer team. It is a good proposal and a good idea. We should have only one international soccer team.

There is great support for sport in Ireland. Last weekend we had four international teams playing around the world, with our Gaelic footballers in Australia, the Northern Ireland soccer team in Switzerland, the Republic of Ireland soccer team in Denmark and the Irish rugby team in the Aviva stadium. All of those venues were packed out. Sport in Ireland is alive and well despite what happened to our soccer team on Tuesday night. It is a great nation for sport and the proposal for an All-Ireland soccer team is a worthy proposal and it should be looked at by both associations. I would urge them to come together and to have a look at having one association.

Almost 12 months ago I raised the issue of driverless cars. They are coming on stream at a very fast pace and at some stage in the future the Leader should look at bringing in the Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport here to see what has to be done in our major cities and roads to accommodate them. There will be many benefits. Commuters going to work in them will require some changes to traffic lights and to other infrastructure. There will be a lot of technology coming on stream. There may be fewer cars on the roads, car sharing and hopefully less crashes, less people in our accident and emergency departments, and less insurance costs. It will have many benefits. Many countries throughout the world are carrying out trials for the driverless car and it is not beyond the bounds for us as a technology leader in so many fields that we should be trialling the driverless car here as well. I ask that the Leader to consider bringing in the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to see what may have to be done to accommodate the driverless car.