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Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 24 Apr 2018

Vol. 967 No. 7

Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017: Report Stage

Amendment No. 1 in the name of Deputy Troy is out of order.

Amendment No. 1 not moved.

Recommittal is necessary in respect of amendments Nos. 2 and 3 as they relate to the motion to instruct committee.

I move:

That the Bill be recommitted in respect of amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

Question put.

Deputies

Vótáil.

Will the Deputies claiming a division please rise?

Deputies Seán Canney, Michael Collins, Michael Fitzmaurice, Danny Healy-Rae, Michael Healy-Rae and Mattie McGrath rose.

As fewer than ten Members have risen, I declare the question carried. In accordance with Standing Order 72, the names of the Deputies dissenting will be recorded in the Journal of the Proceedings of the Dáil.

Question declared carried.
Bill recommitted in respect of amendments Nos. 2 and 3.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 are related and may be taken together.

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 3, line 7, to delete “Road Traffic Act 2010 and the Road Traffic Act 2002” and substitute the following:

“Road Traffic Act 2016, Road Traffic Act 2010, Road Traffic Act 2002, Road Traffic Act 1994 and Road Traffic Act 1961”.

Section 39 of the Road Traffic Act is the section declaring that the owner of a vehicle commits an offence when that vehicle is driven by an unaccompanied learner driver. This was an Opposition amendment which I accepted at the time, but subject to examination by the Office of the Attorney General to ensure that it was correctly worded. As it proved on examination to contain a number of flaws, I am proposing to repeal the section in order to replace it with a new wording which will achieve the policy intention we agreed when the section was adopted. I shall explain what I am changing, and why, in discussions on my proposed replacement to this section.

Can we speak to this amendment?

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this amendment. The constituency I represent is really concerned, worried and upset over what is being proposed. I want to speak about the changes in respect of our young drivers. In some of the places I am elected to represent, young people have no other way of travelling than to get their L-plates. Whether it is to go to a part-time job or from Sneem to university in Cork, and whether they are from Tuosist or in Ardea, Waterville or Ballinskelligs, they need to be able to go to work and earn money to better themselves or go to college. These people are worried that the changes being proposed will be detrimental to their parents, the people who brought them into the world and worked so hard to set them on their way. The young people have stood up on their own feet and purchased a motor car with a bit of assistance from part-time work or their parents and all they want to do is get on in the world and have the same opportunity as all of us had. I appeal for their voices to be heard.

Being a Teachta Dála means one is a messenger of the people. From the first day I was privileged to be elected to the Dáil, I have always considered myself to be a messenger, doing my job for the people I represent. I started travelling to clinics with my late father many years ago and many of the clinics we attended were in public houses. I am very sorry to say that I have to pass the doors of those public houses now because they are closed. I do not say it is the fault of the Minister because it started before he became Minister, but everything has had a knock-on effect and made it impossible for small businesses like the pubs to survive in rural areas. Many of the pubs I go into for my clinics are only hanging on by a thread. Glencar is a place I adore and where I know every house as I have been going there for years looking for votes for the council or Dáil Éireann. We were very proud to have had a small hotel and two pubs there but one unfortunately closed its doors and I am very sorry that respectable publicans had to recognise that it was no longer financially viable to keep their doors open.

The reason we are standing up to call for votes tonight is to express outrage over the changes that are being proposed and if I did not do that, I would be letting down the people who were good enough to back me over the years. I know the way of life of these people; I have been there and I have been part of it. It is a part of what we stand for and it is wrong to blacklist young people, or to criminalise their parents, no matter what part of Kerry they are from, just because they drive a car without a qualified driver with them. I am from Kerry and I am an elected representative for the county so I have to speak out for these people. I would not be doing my job if I did not stand up tonight and put their case on the record of Dáil Éireann. If other Members choose to sit down when a vote is called, that is their business. They are elected to be answerable to the people who vote for them but I and my colleagues will stand up to voice our outrage by calling votes. It is a sad sign in a democracy that we are not able to get enough people to stand up to allow a vote to proceed but I will abide by that. However, I will not let the people of County Kerry down by not standing up for people in Brosna, Knocknagoshel, Lauragh, Ardea, Tuosist, Sneem, Cahirciveen, out in Valentia Island and all the way over to Killorglin and into mid-Kerry. These are places I adore and which I have been travelling to day in and day out, week in and week out, and month in and month out. I know every single person in those areas and I have to stand up for them tonight and say what they have been telling me as recently as this weekend. They were talking about the Minister's Bill and I had to tell them I was disappointed that there were not more like-minded Deputies in the House so that we could at least put up a formidable battle against it. Unfortunately, we are failing because there are not enough like-minded Deputies. The major parties back the Minister, as do other Independents and Sinn Féin. The Minister has a lot of support and it looks like he is beating us. However, I have to have my say and speak for the people I represent.

I deal with people in the medical profession and in the legal profession and they say the magic word is "discretion". In the past, people knew other people's form and they knew who was sensible. If the Minister wanted to shut me up now, all he would need to do is say that this is the law. It has been the law but discretion was always allowed. Insurance companies honoured young people who were driving if they had an L-plate on the car. If there was not a person with a full licence on board, they were still insured if gardaí stopped them. There was a system of discretion to allow people to carry on driving their cars. I believe these young people are highly responsible and are good drivers. We all hear of cases where a person of any age drives recklessly and too fast. Some of us have been caught speeding over the years and I speak for myself in this regard. Anybody who says he is perfect is a liar and I will not tell lies here tonight. I have made the same mistakes as anybody else.

Our young people are very responsible.

Our young people adhere to the principle that if they are going out for a night, they would not dream of driving their motor car. They cherish the idea that they have the right to get up in the morning and drive to college or to their part-time work. All they are trying to do is get on in life. If the Minister was a young person in any of the places I am talking about and if he was miles from the nearest village, never mind the nearest town, how could he as a young person tell his busy mother or father - who might be farming or working - that he needs to go to college or to the fish factory where he was working and ask him or her to sit in the passenger seat for him? The practicality of it just does not make sense.

All I am pleading for is a thing called common sense. My father was full of common sense. He did not go to university but I guarantee he had the brains of any person who ever went to any university. Where did he get it? He got it through common sense and through life's experiences.

This is a momentous night because this and other nights like it have changed the course of the future of rural Ireland. I really and passionately believe that. The one thing I will stand up for - as long as there is blood going through my veins - is rural Ireland. The Minister knows I will. It would be very neglectful of me if I did not. If our late father was here tonight, I know he would wonder whether they all had gone mad and what were they all doing. Were he to see Deputies sitting down and that they would not even stand up to effect a vote-----

We had a vote.

Deputy Mattie McGrath reminded me of the last Government a while ago; I must admit I had it forgotten. There were nights that others, Independent Deputies perhaps, wanted to have a vote. They would ask us to have a vote about something we would not agree with and we stood up to give them the right to have a vote against a Minister in the Government. We might not have voted with them but we stood up to give them the right to vote. I am disappointed. Other people need not have voted with us. I am not looking at anybody in particular.

They could have stood up tonight and given us the chance to have a vote and to let people at home see who was who and what was what. After this, we are going to have Fine Gael Deputies going around and talking about rural Ireland. They will say they did this, that and the other thing for rural Ireland. If they are asked what they did about the Minister, Deputy Ross's Bill, they can mutter and they can stutter but the one thing they will be able to say is that they did not vote with the Minister. When there is no vote on amendments like these, there is no record of them voting against the Minister but they can still say that they were not with him either. They can do the thing that every one of us hates to see. They will be able to walk both sides of the white line. They will have one leg in one camp and one leg in the other. They will be looking for support in rural Ireland and if the Minister wants my honest opinion, they will not deserve it. I think they are letting their constituents down but it is not for me to criticise other politicians; they can speak up for themselves.

I am really worried about what is going on here. I am worried about the future of rural Ireland. I have seen what has happened to our post offices. It is happening today. I am sure the Minister is aware that 390 letters went out today to post offices around the country telling them of their futures and offering them a compensation package to close their doors. There has been a campaign throughout the past to close down rural Ireland. We have had it with the small shops. In the village I am from, there were six pubs and 26 shops. There are now two shops and three pubs. That is only indicative of every other small parish and every other small rural community. They have knocked it away chip by chip. Back in Lauragh there was a great public house, the Shebeen, and I recall the number of times over the years that our late father went there to do our clinics. To think that I must pass that door now, which is closed permanently, to be honest it is sad.

I am on the road traffic-----

He is on the road.

-----because there is no traffic passing those doors now and you know it as well as I do, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. You are a man with your feet firmly on the ground and you know every single part of the constituency you represent as well as I know mine. You know that your area also has been affected by what we call rural decline. What are we, as legislators, doing here tonight? Are we doing anything to halt rural decline? We are not. Are we doing anything to assist people living in rural areas? We are not. Are the consequences of tonight going to hurt the future of rural Ireland? Yes they are. Who is there to shout "stop" or to say we must have a vote on this? I think the last time there were six people who stood up. Out of all the legislators in here it worried six people enough that they thought they had better stand up and try to do something. Are we not very weak up against the Minister? The only thing about it is that we are passionate about what we believe in.

I believe that it is the same as the closure of the rural rail network. I would not dare name people who have gone to their eternal reward but at that time there were politicians who proposed that it was a good idea and a sensible thing to do away with the rural rail network. I will give an example. From the great town of Killarney going out through Killorglin, on out by Mountain Stage and down into Cahirciveen, we had a train. Going out of Killarney through Kilgarvan on into Kenmare we had a train. If we had those trains today, it would change the way business is conducted in those towns. It would be financially viable to have a business operating because with goods inwards and goods outwards, rather than the expensive route of going on roads that are overburdened already by lorries and traffic, we could have them coming and going on the rail network. If we had a train going down to Cahirciveen it would blind the Orient Express any day of the week because of the simple fact of the beauty of the area. People would come from all over the world to see it. If they were travelling along that area on a train looking out onto the sea they would say, "my God, we are going to paradise". I mean that and I believe it in my heart and soul but politicians in this House thought it was a good idea - short-sightedness - to close it down.

Why am I comparing this with all those years ago and those politicians? God be good to them they are gone, but they made a mistake. I believe they made a mistake. I believe that the Deputies who will not stand up here tonight against the Minister's proposals are making a mistake. Time will prove who is right and who is wrong. Being a politician and being serious about it means having to look to the future. We have to see around turns and time will tell that what is happening here is wrong.

It comes back to what I said earlier on about people using their discretion. We had gardaí who used their discretion. We had people in positions of authority who sized up a situation and made up their minds about what was right and what was wrong. The trouble nowadays is that everything is about books and papers, filling up forms and dotting i's and crossing t's. We are so blinded by legislation and by people being politically correct that we are losing sight of our real values, namely, people. When I think of legislation and of changes - I am not even talking about the Minister, Deputy Ross - it is so easy for a Minister to come along and say he thinks such a thing is a good idea. However, we must think of the knock-on consequences and what it will mean to people living in their own communities. It can devastate communities. If we look at decisions that were taken in the past, for instance with regard to people in our fishing communities, we sold out our fishermen and what did they get in return? Nothing.

Yes, it is all coming back to the road traffic Bill, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That is what you think.

I wish to just make a short statement lest others may be of the view that this is a technical amendment. It is providing for the inclusion of the Road Traffic Acts of 2016, 2010, 2002 and 1996. That might be right but I take the view that this recommittal is widening the scope of the Bill. I cannot insist that it is very narrowly focused but what I can insist on is that while the Deputy is making a contribution, he sticks to the road traffic issue.

I could not agree with the Leas-Cheann Comhairle more. Every word he said is 100% correct. I agree with him and will do exactly what he says to the letter of the law. He is the boss.

Sticking 100% to the Bill, I say to the Minister that I do not agree with it. I fundamentally, heart and soul, disagree with it. I am sorry that my colleagues and I do not have more support. Tonight and tomorrow will be remembered for years to come. People will look back at the changes being made and will see that letting this happen was a big mistake. They will ask where the politicians were and the answer will be that many of them were asleep at the wheel. They could not see what was happening and did not realise the enormity of the implications for people.

I have made my case in the fairest, most honest, straightforward way, and nobody, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle included, could disagree or find fault with the sincerity of my argument. He has visited County Kerry and he has seen what life is like there. He knows the people I am talking about. He can see why I am so passionate about this, why I believe what I am saying and why I believe I am correct. It is seldom that I will be heard saying I am right and someone else is wrong but in this case I think I am and it would be neglectful of me not to say that. I am glad to be here and to have had the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for his indulgence.

I reiterate I am vehemently opposed to the Bill in its entirety and to the additional proposal regarding learner drivers. A couple of weeks ago, the Government made much ado about the lack of teachers. Students who are going to college, whether they are in Kilgarvan, the Black Valley, Cahirciveen or wherever else, have to undertake teacher training in different schools around their areas. Many of them are in university in Cork. They go there for a few hours and then go home to Macroom, Bandon or Killarney to finish the rest of the day. Can the Minister visualise how that is going to work? Who is going to travel with them? Someone will have to drive these students to college in Cork, stay with them there for two hours and bring them back home again. That simply will not work. The Minister will ask me why these students do not have licences. They cannot get a provisional licence until they are 17 years of age. There is then a 22-week wait to do their tests. That is half a year. That is the truth and these are the facts. How are young people from Lauragh, Knocknagoshel, Gneeveguilla, Rathmore or Scartaglen going to manage? It just will not work. It is different in Cork or Dublin where there is a completely different way of life.

I am sorry the Minister does not understand and does not want to understand. I believe that every young person deserves to get the same chance as everyone else but because of this legislation, young people will be further isolated. They will not be able to go their apprenticeships or attend colleges and their whole education will be affected. Young people of 17 or 18 years of age cannot ask their father to drive them around the county because everyone has his or her own job to do, be it milking cows, teaching or whatever else. In rural Ireland, in places like Kerry, one cannot travel without a car.

The elderly are also angered by this Bill. Many people around the country are greatly angered by what the Minister is doing, and are asking what they did wrong. They do not believe they ever did anything to the Minister and are wondering whether he is trying to make a name for himself with this Bill. The Minister has not shown that people with 50 mg to 80 mg of alcohol in their blood while driving are the cause of fatalities or accidents. I certainly do not condone drunk-driving but a pint and a half pint never made anybody drunk. That is the truth. There is a lot of talk at the moment about hard and soft borders. The facts are that in the Six Counties, the limit is 80 mg, not 50 mg. One is not put off the road until there is 80 mg of alcohol in one's blood. In France the limit is 80 mg and if one is caught with a lower level than that, one is just fined; one is not put off the road and there are no penalty points.

Why are the people in Kerry and other rural places being scapegoated? Why is the Minister trying to criminalise them? They are hard-working people. There has been much talk about water and housing. These people just want to be left alone. It is harder and harder to get planning permission. Most people in rural Kerry have their own septic tanks and their own water supply. They are really asking for nothing except to be left alone. So much lipservice has been paid, since I have been a Member of this House, about what will be done for rural Ireland. Everything that is being done is hurting the people of rural Ireland. Why will the Minister not just leave them alone? I am begging him to leave them alone. I cannot understand how Fine Gael gave the Minister liberty to do this. That party, for almost 100 years, has gone in and out of rural countryside places such as Rathmore, Kenmare, the Black Valley and the Pocket in Glanmore, and people have voted for it in those places. It is now turning its back on those people and giving the Minister the power to put forward this Bill and to isolate them further.

The people in rural Ireland do not break the law. When this law is brought forward they will only have one thing to do; stay at home. They will not be able to socialise. They will not be able to go out to their local pub to have a pint and a half pint in the way they have been doing. I know a man of 93 years of age, and he has his pint and his half pint - at the very most two pints - and he has never been over the 80 mg limit. As Deputy Michael Healy-Rae has said, discretion was allowed. That man is 93 years of age but the minute this Bill is enacted, that man will be at home for the rest of his days because he will know that at the 50 mg level he will not be able to have a pint. That is the effect this Bill will have on such a man and many more like him, those who have worked tirelessly to put this country together. Those people had to do things that we do not understand. I do not understand what they did, and I am certain the Minister does not understand what they did or how they managed to keep going and keep the country going. We are here because of people like that man and many more who have gone.

That is how we came to be here.

I again call on the Minister to reconsider what he is doing. In Dublin, there are plenty of DARTs, buses and taxis but places like Sneem, Waterville or Caherdaniel do not have taxis. There is some service on a Saturday night to take the young people to the local disco. That is all they have, and there is nothing left to enable the elderly or middle-aged people to go out to the rural pubs. It is sad to think that while many rural pubs have closed, hundreds more will do so once this Bill is brought forward.

I am disappointed to note that not enough Deputies stood up to allow us to have a vote. At other times, we have stood up at with other parties just to give them the privilege and the chance to have a vote. We were not allowed that chance tonight and I regret it. I know that many of the those who were present would have liked to stand. I do not know who stopped them. I believe that when a Member is elected to this House, there is only one priority, namely, the people who vote for him or her. Many of the Deputies here have let their own people down. However, that is their business and I will not name them or anything like that. I am very disappointed that we did not have a vote tonight because this is a most serious issue. It is going to hurt County Kerry in a desperate way because by and large, it is a rural county and one cannot manage without a car. People realise that when this measure comes in, if they go out, have a pint and a half and are caught, they will lose their licence. That means they will lose their job, which means they lose everything. It could mean they lose their home.

This is shameless carry-on. I am hurt and I am praying that somehow, something will happen that will stop this from going through. The Minister seems to have the numbers. Fine Gael is backing him just because he is holding that party's Government together. It is a shame that Fine Gael has allowed the Minister to do this because many of its members do not agree with this measure either. What the Minister is doing is needless. He is hurting many people in rural Ireland and I am very sad and angry about it.

I too want to speak about the recommittal of this amendment. I have been here for 11 years now and I do not think I have ever seen this happen. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, had introduced his Road Traffic (Amendment) Bill 2017 and we all debated it here. Then he had a brainwave over Christmas and decided to add more things to it, for fear it would not do enough damage. Ar an gcéad dul síos, I do not want to see anybody drink-driving. I do not want to see anybody hurt by an accident. However, laws Members pass in here must be accepted by the people. The Garda cannot police the country, nor can any police force police any country in the world, without the support of the people, na daoine go léir. If the Minister brings in draconian laws that are impossible to implement, it will undermine the whole ethos of government, legislation and constitutionality.

Bhí mé an-chairdiúil leis an Aire ar feadh cúig bliana. We were the best of friends. He has now decided to take a dislike to me because I represent my constituents. I am doing no more than my colleagues here. I am representing the people that I meet who do not have services in rural Ireland. I will deal with the rest of this tomorrow but I note the Minister has raised the issue of learner drivers. I know some of the Minister's children and grandchildren. I have asked him honestly whether any of them has ever sat in a car without a qualified driver. He said they had not. I take him at his word. However, I can tell him that most people in rural Ireland have to drive. Insurance companies accepted this, as Deputy Michael Healy-Rae noted, and An Garda Síochána were aware of it too. I am not against dangerous drivers.

I have asked the Minister to reform the testing centres countless times. It is a dog's dinner. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He will not listen, or his officials will not listen, at all. I put down a parliamentary question, which I have to hand, that the Department passed on to the Road Safety Authority, RSA. The Minister is good at passing the buck. The RSA confirmed to me in a parliamentary reply that nationally, a total of 44,746 applicants are awaiting to be scheduled for a test. The Minister should sort that out first, and then demonise the people. He has the cart before the horse. I could say something else about mo thóin. But I will not use it, because it is spelled A - R - S - E and W - A - Y - S.

These figures go to the heart of what I and others have been saying for some time now; which is there is a chronic backlog afflicting the sector, which in turn is creating serious knock-on consequences. What else did the RSA tell me? What is deeply alarming to me is that this number of almost 45,000 does not include those who have already been scheduled for an upcoming test. They could number another 40,000 for all we know. The Minister is playing with the figures. In this case he is playing with people's lives and their constitutional rights to live, breathe, work, play and socialise. To hell with them. I said it earlier. To hell or to Connacht. Cromwell is back. Those people do not matter. The Minister talks about Bills in this House. On the other hand he is going to knock Na Fianna GAA club down, undermine it or blow it up like Nelson's Pillar. It does not matter where it goes.

The Minister does not listen. The figure of 45,000 merely reflects those waiting to be given a test date. What about the rest of them? The RSA informs me that in part, this is due to the number of driver tester retirements in the past 12 months. However, it does not specify how many testers have opted out of the system or why. They are probably fed up with it. They are sick of it. Working in a bureaucratic system is impossible. I told the Minister previously that driving should be started in schools. Tús maith, leath na hoibre. It should start in transition year where a simulator course should be held and driver testing carried out. Some schools, including the Abbey School in Tipperary town, have had that facility for several years.

The RSA has also told me it has taken on 23 new testers in 2016. Hooray. Only six of them will commence operating by this year. What is going on? What are they doing, these 26 testers, if they are not working? Are they on the payroll doing nothing? This is farce. The Minister and his officials should go back and examine that. I refer to the downright waste involved in people taking two years to be trained. Are they that stupid, that they take two years to be become a tester? I do not know what the Minister is in charge of but the lunatics are in charge of the asylum and I include the Minister in that.

This is simply not good enough, given the scale of the challenge. If my son or daughter applies to do their test they may fail for a flimsy reason. I agree that fundamentals must be done right. Test candidates have all had 12 lessons now, which means that nearly €600 has been spent by themselves or their parents or guardians. The lesson system is very good. I told the Minister earlier about a girl who drove from Cappawhite to Clonmel, a distance of 30 miles, in the fog. The tester came outside, looked up at the sky and said it was too foggy to have a test, so she could not take it. She had to drive home again in the fog. What kind of a fog is the Minister in? He is in a fog, and he does not know when he is going to come out of it. He is in a deep fog. He does not know what is going on.

I met someone only two weeks ago who drove in the frost from Ballyporeen into Clonmel. She brought an approved driver with her, for fear the Minister might have instructed the Garda to catch her. The tester came out, said it was a bit cold and frosty and declared he was not going to do it. This is what is going on, namely, downright blackguarding of ordinary people and citizens. It is downright blackguarding and skulduggery. Those people must take a day off work and get a driver to accompany them. They wait for six months for a test in my town of Clonmel. If a candidate fails the test for any reason, however flimsy, they must wait a month before they reapply. They are penalised again. They cannot apply that day by simply asking if they can come back again. Think of an enthusiastic young fellow who has an apprenticeship waiting for him, who must finish his college or leaving certificate or lo and behold, wants to go to college. The Government will not give him accommodation up here. It is doubling and trebling the fees here. It wants people to live in the Dark Ages in the country. Let them grow horns and go back to the Dark Ages. To hell with them. Keep all the nice things for this crazy city where one cannot get a bed. Somebody told me tonight that a bed in a hotel cost them €780. We have plenty of beds in Tipperary. We have plenty of people there. The Rising started in Tipperary. The War of Independence started in Soloheadbeg. We are great people, proud people and people with autonomy. I am elected by the people of Tipperary for the time being, thankfully, and I will fight the Minister every inch of the way on this Bill, because it is nonsense and poppycock. He does not understand the first thing about it and he cares less. He had time for reflection over Christmas or maybe he was on one of those journeys that his colleagues have been on with the eighth amendment. They were all going on journeys this way, that way and the other way. To the people who are here tonight in the Visitors Gallery, in anticipation of the next debate-----

I have to take the Deputy back to terra firma.

Thank you. I am definitely on terra firma. They are on terra firma suas ansin, freisin. And Big Tom, Tomás Mór-----

I am asking the Deputy to move the adjournment.

Before I finish I want to extend my sympathy to the family of Tomás Mór who sang "Four Roads to Glenamaddy".

However much those in the Gallery wish to applaud, it is not customary to do so.

Debate adjourned.
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