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Related Tags: Drink Driving, Breathalysers
Irish council approves drink driving
IT'S a major step back to the stone ages. That is the view of thousands of Irish residents who now fear for the safety of their children after a council voted to allow drink driving.Road safety chiefs in the Republic of Ireland have slammed the councillors for their 'unthinkable' decision, describing the messy situation as 'democracy gone mad'.
Kerry County Council decided to back special permits to excuse rural dwellers from nationwide drink-driving limits, which in Ireland is set at 50mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, less than the UK's highly controversial 80mg per 100ml.
Alcohol is proven to alter the way the mind works and the consequences for convicted drivers are normally quite significant.
With 12 councillors absent and another seven abstaining from voting on this controversial decision, it only took five pro-drinking councillors to defeat three against drink driving to pass the vote.
Noel Brett, chief executive of the Road Safety Authority, said the scientific and medical evidence proving that alcohol impairs driving is 'irrefutable'.
"On that basis it is unthinkable that we would go back to a system that sought to increase our drink-drive limit," he said.
The five councillors who made the motion possible are all publicans, former publicans or somehow connected to the pub trade - causing uproar among locals.
Councillor Danny Healy-Rae, the publican who proposed the idea, claimed the move would 'greatly benefit' and even prevent suicide and depression among those who felt isolated because of more stringent drink-driving legislation.
But Conor Cullen, spokesman for Alcohol Action Ireland, said: "Those in rural areas who may be suffering from isolation will not benefit from putting their lives and the lives of the other members of their community at risk by drinking and driving."
The Irish Department of Transport has signalled its opposition to the Kerry proposals, with one senior spokesman saying: "Unfortunately, rural areas are among the most dangerous roads in Ireland.
"We need to be looking at how to make our roads safer, particularly in rural areas, instead of trying to reverse existing measures which are clearly working."
With 161 drink-driving related deaths last year, Ireland has come a long way in tackling the country's love with drinking - 51 fewer fatalities than two years previously.
Campaigners for road safety have argued that providing free or discounted late-night taxi services would greatly reduce any problems and outweigh the costs to emergency services and hospitals when there is a major road accident.
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