The patience of Fianna Fáil backbenchers is wearing thin, following the Minister for Transport's attempt to enforce provisional licence law, writes Mark Hennessy
Sorting out the farce that surrounds Irish driving-licence rules was never going to be easy, but Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has certainly made a difficult job tougher.
Within hours of last week's announcement, Fianna Fáil TDs began to suffer a barrage of calls from infuriated provisional-licence holders.
For three decades, young and not so young drivers have ignored with impunity the rules requiring them to be accompanied, bar during their second licence period.
One in six drivers on the road holds a provisional licence. Just 122,000 of them - the ones on their second licence - up to yesterday were actually entitled to be there on their own.
Few of those in breach of the law have ever given much, if any, thought to the fact that they were doing so. Hundreds of thousands of those now on full licences were equally culpable during their provisional-licence existence. If fact, large numbers of people - since they were never queried on it by the Garda or by their insurance company - have managed to convince themselves that they were never doing anything wrong in the first place.
The numbers involved should have made any politician wary, but on Thursday, the Minister seemed unaware of the political storm that he was about to unleash.
During preparations the day before, however, Mr Dempsey gave more of an indication that he understood the political ramifications, insisting that there would be no change, no climb-down, no compromise.
Since Thursday, support from his Cabinet colleagues has been notable by its absence. The Minister has repeatedly shown strength of character in difficult situations, but, all too often, he has also shown rash judgment.
Although the road strategy document was presented to the Cabinet before publication, it is not yet clear how detailed a discussion ministers had of its contents, particularly the section covering provisional licences.
If they did discuss the fine-print, it is difficult to understand how experienced Ministers failed to predict the furore, particularly since their backbench colleagues were sounding alarm bells within minutes of seeing the document.
In fairness to the Cabinet, the legislation required to tighten provisional rules is already law, and, therefore, could be brought into force using statutory instruments.
The issue of drivers with provisional licences is not uncharted water for the Government. Séamus Brennan, during his time in Transport, caused panic among provisional-licence holders when he first broached the idea of clamping down.
Immediately after Mr Brennan's intervention, and again when Martin Cullen later took the same position, driving test centres were inundated with applications from panicked provisional motorists.
The same is happening now. On Thursday morning, Fianna Fáil TDs angrily protested both to their own headquarters, to Mr Dempsey's office and to Government Buildings, and demanded change.
"There is no parliamentary party meeting this week because of the bank holiday, but I can assure you that there would have been one, and that there would have been change if Dempsey had not backed down," said one Fianna Fáil TD.
Now, the Government is back where it was before, even if more tests can now be carried out. Accepting that the 122,000 on second provisionals can be tested before June, half of them are going to fail, if current pass rates stay the same.
Solving the mess was never going to be easy, and it would always have required a politician of Mr Dempsey's stature, and willingness to go where others fear to tread.
Bravery, however, is one thing. Judgment is another. In the real world, the State cannot, overnight, stop hundreds of people doing what they were doing, particularly when most of them believed, wrongly, that they were not wrong in the first place.
Since its creation, the Road Safety Authority, under Noel Brett and chairman Gay Byrne, has worked hard to deal with test backlog, reducing the queues in some centres to just six weeks.
On Sunday, Mr Brett said that he could raise test numbers to 8,000 a week within 12 weeks, and to 12,000 a week if necessary, using private contractors Swiss SGS, under a deal agreed with Impact, the State-employed-testers' union.
Politically, it would have been better to have first increased the number of tests that could be done, and then set a realistic timetable to clear the backlog before clamping down.
The immediate heat has been taken out of the issue by the decision to give second provisional-licence holders until June to sort themselves out, but this will do nothing for those holding later permits.
"Much will depend on what the Garda does now. If they stop people for using provisional licences when they shouldn't be driving, then this is going to flare up again," said another FF TD.
"In the meantime, politicians are going to spend the next few months filing letters for constituents looking for driving tests. And every one of them will be claiming that their job is dependent upon getting an early test," he fumed.
Already, one district judge in Wicklow made it clear, even before the tougher rules came in, that any such offender coming before his court will face a year off the road, and a hefty fine.
Mr Dempsey has sent a warning shot across provisional motorists' bows. If it does press them into applying for and getting their full licence, and reapplying consistently until they do, then he will have performed a service.
But it has been done at a cost to his political reputation. Coming so close to the debacle over Aer Lingus and Shannon, Mr Dempsey could well have avoided paying such a bill.