DANNY HEALY-RAE V. SHANE ROSS
DRINK DRIVING LEGISLATION ADVERSARIES LAY OUT THEIR STALLS
THE question I’m asking Minister Ross is can he come forward and say someone who has had three glasses of beer, which is all you can have under 80mg, is a concrete danger? I’ve asked his department officials at committee meetings and they refused point blank, or can’t substantiate the facts to prove what they are saying.
Minister Ross told us in the committee that the figure was 46 deaths. That’s how close I’m marking him on this issue. They now say that 19 deaths between 21 and 50mgs and 17 between 50mgs and 80mgs is the case.
Look, he wants to take this out of context by making smart remarks and I won’t do that for him. What we’re talking about here is driving a motor car and when I asked what role the person taking three glasses of beer has in fatalities, they couldn’t answer me first and then they started using data protection. I want to have the incidents explained in their separate contexts and they won’t do it.
I’m around a long time and I’ll stand over my view until the day I die. I have never seen it and do not know about it – and I would know – if someone caused a fatality with just three glasses of alcohol. It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that Minister Ross is at this during the long days of summer when there’s a lot more things that need sorting out.
Of late we’re hearing calls that small amounts of drugs might yet be legalised. So how much is a small amount of drugs? These drug dealers can go twenty times a day to the one pick up point and deliver drugs somewhere else in small amounts. And yet this Minister is trying to criminalise someone that has three glasses of beer, living in a house in the country miles away from anyone, and this is what he wants to do to them. What are they at?
Minster Ross is in bother now as people are copping on to him. He wants to make a name for himself as the Minister who passed this legislation. He’s a smart man alright having a go at me, but if he comes down here and meets the people that I meet every day – people that are worried they will be stranded at home if this legislation is brought in – he’ll know very quick what people think of him.
There’s people out there who will do everything right tonight: get a taxi home and abide by the limit. Yet still they could be caught in the morning if the safety valve of 50mgs to 80mgs is to be removed. They won’t be able to bring their elderly parents or children to mass if they’re caught.
I’m respectfully calling on all the other deputies in the Dáil from rural Ireland, regardless of their affiliation, to make sure they don’t vote for this legislation. I know the people I represent are asking me every day can we stop this.
What Minister Ross doesn’t realise is the people of rural Ireland have no other mode for transportation if they lose their license. It might be fine to lose your license above in Dublin where you have a Luas, buses and taxis that are passing one another out for the want of picking people up. You don’t have that facility down here in this part of the country.