News Limited Network
January 23, 2013
LOCAL lawmakers in Ireland have voted in favour of allowing rural residents to drive home drunk.
Councillors in County Kerry voted 5-3 in favour of Danny Healy-Rae’s motion that would permit people to consume “two or three drinks” and then drive.
Councilor Healy-Rae said he put forward the proposal because many older rural residents felt isolated and “a lot of them (are) falling into depression.”
“I see the merit in having a stricter rule of law for when there’s a massive volume of traffic and where there’s busy roads with massive speed,” Gawker reported him as telling The Journal.
“But on the roads I’m talking about, you couldn’t do any more than 20 or 30 miles per hour [30-50kph] and it’s not a big deal. I don’t see any big issue with it.”
Alcohol Action Ireland’s Conor Cullen told the BBC that almost one in three car-related deaths in Ireland involve alcohol and that tougher drink-driving measures had lowered road deaths in the country by 42 per cent over the past four years. Mr Cullen also said that alcohol was a depressant and would exacerbate any suicidal thoughts a person was having.
Twelve councilors were absent for the vote and the proposal still requires the approval of the Department of Justice to get the green light.
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