Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I have been notified that the Minister for Transport is unavailable today. I thank the Minister of State for coming in to take this Commencement matter. I have done this on foot of correspondence I received from a retired commandant in the Army who has been talking to many of his friends about the proposals by TII to shut off lay-bys on motorways. Neither he nor I nor anybody I talk to can really understand why we would have it in very large print on many of the digital signs on motorway that motorists should pull in and take a nap for their own safety when they feel tired. This completely flies in the face of that. It is a ludicrous proposal by TII. I have seen another article in the newspaper where the Road Safety Authority has backed it as well. I cannot comprehend that for one second. I am not going to go on about it or take three minutes to talk about it. It is a ludicrous proposal which the Government needs to look at very smartly and with a fresh pair of eyes. It is the wrong message that we are going to make motorists drive for 60 minutes. If you are driving on a motorway and happen to get tired and it is 50 km to the next petrol station, and you cannot pull into the lay-by, that is nonsense. I have yet to see a lay-by where there have been queues up the road waiting to get into it. This is something that is not broken and does not need fixing. Our lay-bys are fit to accommodate motorists who need to use them as well as commercial and emergency vehicles.