A chara, – Over the years, Noel Dempsey has been bright and innovative, with an ability to see things from a fresh perspective and willing to float radical reforms. On occasion, however, he’s been painfully removed from the reality of ordinary people’s daily lives and has had to be brought back down to earth by his own parliamentary party.
His proposals to further reduce the blood alcohol content limit from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml fall into the latter category.
There are strong arguments on both sides but there is no doubt that if he gets his way, the ability and willingness of many lonely elderly people to socialise and meet their friends for a single quiet pint will be all but wiped out.
The Minister can talk in milligrams but there is no metric measure of the degree of isolation his reforms will impose across vast swathes of rural Ireland, sparsely populated and devoid of a proper public transport system. Surely that is something the Government should heed?
Just days ago, the Government’s entire fiscal policy hinged on a democratic vote of a few hundred Green Party members. It would surely be astonishing if the passionately held views of almost the entire Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on a critical piece of social policy were to be thwarted by one man’s “back me or sack me” ultimatum. Fianna Fáil always claimed to represent the ordinary people of Ireland. Now is their time to show it. – Is mise,
DAVID CARROLL,
Travers Hill,
Boyle,
Co Roscommon.
Madam – Fianna Fáil backbenchers are in revolt.
Are they in revolt over the slashing of the suicide prevention budget? No. Are they in revolt over the scrapping of the teenage cancer vaccination scheme? No. Perhaps the multi-billion euro punt on Nama? No.
In fact they are in revolt over being forced to drink one less drink a night. Now that is revolting. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Although there is plenty of research that supports the reduction of the drink-driving blood-alcohol limit from 80mg to the new limit of 50mg, there are many other factors that also affect the number of deaths and injuries on our roads.
There is a culture that persists among a significant proportion of road users that they can behave exactly as they please once they are safely ensconced within the metal cocoon of their own vehicle.
Until drivers realise that red is not the new green, that darkness does not automatically mean speed limits disappear, that signalling does apply to them and not only to others, and so on, the greater amount of fatalities and injuries will occur as a result of driver ignorance and excessive speed.
The question is, if an individual in an incident was found to be a certain amount over the 50mg limit, what other external factors added to any particular accident? Was alcohol always the direct cause? How is the contribution quantified at 80mg?
Further policing of the existing limit, along with efforts to police road behaviour in general, could reap a more tangible reward.
Drink-driving is unacceptable, but until actual driver behaviour is changed through further policing, (I have been stopped at a checkpoint once in the last 12 years), drivers will still continue to take the risk at 80mg, let alone 50mg. – Yours, etc,