Niall Blaney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The statement the Minister of State has been given contains the line that "the need for such lay-bys for non-professional drivers has reduced".Have people stopped getting tired or are they less tired when they are driving? This whole thing is nonsensical and that is why I am taking the opportunity to raise it. It was mentioned in the reply that the motorway service area policy was published in 2014. That policy was published because of the need for lay-bys for people to pull in and take a nap for road safety purposes. This flies in the face of road safety. There is no way in the wide earthly world that I or many others in this House can support this policy. It is nonsense. I ask the Minister of State to take my very strong words back to the Minister. If given the opportunity, I am sure many other Senators in this House would agree with me that this proposal is nonsense. If we think we are doing this on the grounds of safety, we are very wrong and we are going down a very dangerous road.