Kerry Drink Driving Permit

[johnneycool]

I know Healy-Rae is yer typical cute Kerry hoor and all that but he still has merit in his arguments.
I know that what he's looking for will never become law (and he knows that too) but at least he's highlighting the social problems of those in isolated rural communities. I suppose there must be one law for everybody but that means the farmer in Aclare that hops up onto his Massey Ferguson after a hard day's haymaking is as guilty as a yuppie in Dublin who has only a few hundred yards to go.
Ted Nealon, the former Fine Gael TD once made this point. I know Aclare and I understood what he was saying but like the bould Jackie, he was laughed off the proverbial stage.
However, I still have sympathy for all the farmers in Aclare.

I tell ye, there's no hard day hay making now with the advent of the round baler and the teleporter.

Plus if you're thirsty then a pint of porter isn't going to do you any good.

[AZOffaly]

Guys, you really have to hand it to the Healy Raes............. some amount of publicity and interviews for a nonstarter of a  proposal (as they well know). Rabble rousing / vote garnering /"showing that shower up in Dublin" at its best . Fair play to them.

Can't believe so many have fallen for it.

If people in Kerry want to vote en masse for a family of parasites, that's their entitlement. And the rest of us are entitled to view it for what it is.

Kerry has a population of 145,000. At the last elections Danny-Healy Rae got 3,000 votes. Michael Healy-Rae got 6,600 votes. With the huge crossover of votes, I would say the figures show that approx. 95% of Kerry people didn't vote for the Healy-Raes in the last election.
Kerry voters have been slated for voting in the Healy-Raes yet never a word is said about the Dublin voters voting in Bertie Ahern and Charlie Haughey or half the country voting in their own local crooks, scoundrels and gombeens.

If you're going to build a wall around Kerry because of the Healy-Raes then build a wall with motion sensored machine guns around Dublin for voting in Bertie and Charlie and also have walls around Tipp for Lowry, Limerick for O'Dea, etc.
And of course let's not forget Donegal where Jim McDaid got voted in, 2 years after getting into a car when more than 3 times over the then drink driving limit and driving down the wrong way of a dual carriageway.

I tend to agree with you blanketattack, but you are being slightly disengenuous with those figures. The population of Kerry is 145k, but how many are of voting age? Now let's start talking about Kerry South and Kerry North. The Healy Raes are South Kerry, so no-one in North Kerry is allowed to vote for him. Now in council elections, lets further cut it down to the constituency, which is probably something like Kenmare or that. In those terms, of the people allowed vote for them, the numbers would be a far higher percentage than what you've outlined.

[blanketattack]

I tend to agree with you blanketattack, but you are being slightly disengenuous with those figures. The population of Kerry is 145k, but how many are of voting age? Now let's start talking about Kerry South and Kerry North. The Healy Raes are South Kerry, so no-one in North Kerry is allowed to vote for him. Now in council elections, lets further cut it down to the constituency, which is probably something like Kenmare or that. In those terms, of the people allowed vote for them, the numbers would be a far higher percentage than what you've outlined.

That's kind of my point too, the way you're breaking it down into specific areas.
Michael Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in South Kerry.
Danny Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in Killarney.
Yet ALL of Kerry is being slated for voting them in.

[Bingo]

Upon review you could also say that only a small % of kerry voted in favour of it as 5 councillors voted yes, 3 voted no and the other 19 shite the pants and sat on the fence.

So in reality only the % who voted for the Yes five (and drink in their pubs) decided on this course of action.

The bigger ejits who could have avoided all this are the ones who didn't vote.

It could also be a big tourism market for Kerry, like Amsterdam is for pot smoking, Kerry could attract those looking to drink-drive and tour the county, locked. A tourist drink-drive permit could also be introduced.

[Tony Baloney]

They could get (more) EU funding for wider roads with an extra lane with foam barriers for people driving about pissed out of their heads. Would give the local construction industry a lift too.

[blanketattack]

Upon review you could also say that only a small % of kerry voted in favour of it as 5 councillors voted yes, 3 voted no and the other 19 shite the pants and sat on the fence.

So in reality only the % who voted for the Yes five (and drink in their pubs) decided on this course of action.

The bigger ejits who could have avoided all this are the ones who didn't vote.

It could also be a big tourism market for Kerry, like Amsterdam is for pot smoking, Kerry could attract those looking to drink-drive and tour the county, locked. A tourist drink-drive permit could also be introduced.

No, as far as that vote is concerned I would look at it as 88% of the council didn't vote no and the abstainers and absenteers are just as culpable as those who voted yes.
At least the reasons those who voted yes are transparent, they wanted to boost trade in their pubs. I'd love to know why the abstainers/absenteers didn't vote no.
Some reckon it was because they didn't want to upset their constituents but I don't believe that. Despite what the Healy Raes try to convince you of, the people living on their own in rural isolation in Kerry that would like to be able to drink and drive is a tiny tiny percentage, outnumbered at least by a factor of 100 by parents who'd abhorr the thought that old fellas with special permits could legally drive around, over the limit at any time and knock them or their kids over.

[AZOffaly]

I tend to agree with you blanketattack, but you are being slightly disengenuous with those figures. The population of Kerry is 145k, but how many are of voting age? Now let's start talking about Kerry South and Kerry North. The Healy Raes are South Kerry, so no-one in North Kerry is allowed to vote for him. Now in council elections, lets further cut it down to the constituency, which is probably something like Kenmare or that. In those terms, of the people allowed vote for them, the numbers would be a far higher percentage than what you've outlined.

That's kind of my point too, the way you're breaking it down into specific areas.
Michael Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in South Kerry.
Danny Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in Killarney.
Yet ALL of Kerry is being slated for voting them in.

Aye, but the way you said it was that Only x% of the population of Kerry voted for these galoots. My point is that it's a much bigger percentage when you strip out the people that cannot vote for them. I think it's optimistic to say that they wouldn't garner a few more votes from those other areas, at least if the people there were allowed vote for them.

PS. if they lived over the border in West Cork, or West Limerick , or West Clare, or South Offaly, or North Tipp, or South Tipp or anywhere else they'd also attract their fair share of supporters. The old maxim of all politics being local is still very true, and anyone who plays on that will be popular at the polling station.

[Lar Naparka]

I know Healy-Rae is yer typical cute Kerry hoor and all that but he still has merit in his arguments.
I know that what he's looking for will never become law (and he knows that too) but at least he's highlighting the social problems of those in isolated rural communities. I suppose there must be one law for everybody but that means the farmer in Aclare that hops up onto his Massey Ferguson after a hard day's haymaking is as guilty as a yuppie in Dublin who has only a few hundred yards to go.
Ted Nealon, the former Fine Gael TD once made this point. I know Aclare and I understood what he was saying but like the bould Jackie, he was laughed off the proverbial stage.
However, I still have sympathy for all the farmers in Aclare.

Why not say "the gombeen man in Aclare that hops into his brand new Merc after a hard day's milking the social welfare system [© Kevin McAleer] is as guilty as a hard-grafting factory worker in Clondakin who only has a few hundred yards to go"?

I think there can't be many farmers in Aclare milking anything at the present time and that's because I know there ain't many farmers in Aclare. There's very few of the Homo sapiens variety living there at all.
Driving down the main (and only) street, it's obvious that there are more deserted premises in the little village than ones that are inhabited. As in most other remote rural communities, people are voting with their feet.
For some the only social diversion was the weekly game of twenty five in the local pub. Three or four pints and the bit of chat were about the height of it. The prizes they played for weren't' up to much; maybe a suck calf or a trailer of turf and it would take 10 to 12 weeks before the competition ended.
From what I gather, the weekly card drives are only history now. No wonder the people are clearing out.
I'd safely say that there are more "hard-grafting factory workers" in Clondalkin than farmers in Aclare right now.

[thebandit]

While I don't agree at all with the idea, I have sympathy with a bachelor farmer who drank 3 pints on a weeknight and drove home for years having that taken away from him. But the is no logical way to allow drink driving in any shape or form.

I do think however, that Ray Darcy came across as condescending and bad mannered. He evidently had his mind made up about this man, and his idea before he came in air. So why did he even want to interview him if he wasn't going to let him speak?

I agree with Darcy's views on the subject, but I strongly disagree with how he treated Healy-Ra

[Syferus]

To be fair with that family it's clearly an accumulation of their continual stoke politics that was at play with in how D'arcy treated Healy-Rae the lesser. The hilarity made up for any journalistic malpractice.

You'd need to have suffered a literal stroke not to be able to see through the Healy-Raes.

[deiseach]

I'd safely say that there are more "hard-grafting factory workers" in Clondalkin than farmers in Aclare right now.

You're missing my point. We could all go around justifying social policy change on the basis that the good culchie folk should allowed to do the kind of thing that odious Jackeens - and please don't claim 'yuppie' is a value-neutral term, it isn't - take for granted. It's much more difficult to justify your position when you put the disreputable character in the culchie camp and vice versa. Remember the end to the film Lorenzo's Oil, where we saw all the beautiful people who were alive thanks to the treatment? I'd recommend watching the ending of the episode of The Critic which takes the piss out of the premise, showing Lars Schoenberg who has "just clubbed my one-thousandth baby seal thanks to Jay's Oil!"

[highorlow]

If this goes through there would be a few hidden costs involved that these councilors may not have fully thought through

1 -  they should insist on is having a flashing beacon on top of the car or tractor to let every other road user know that they are on the drink drive permits. who pays for these beacons?

2 - special warning road signs designated for county Kerry, i.e. a shot of a car weaving in and out and a pint glass beside it

3 - more signs like the ones you have when entering the gaelteacht except it would be for entering a drink drive zone

4 - possible requirement for high visability portaloos along the roads in kerry

5 - high visability jackets for the drunk drivers if they need to take a leak on the way home

6 - scuba gear

7 - cribs for the transport box (for busy nights where a few lads are getting a lift)

8 - dictaphones

9 - wellies

10 - torch's

[muppet]

I would take the Bertistic approach to Danny Healy-Rae, appoint him to the European Space Agency or something like that.

[blanketattack]

I tend to agree with you blanketattack, but you are being slightly disengenuous with those figures. The population of Kerry is 145k, but how many are of voting age? Now let's start talking about Kerry South and Kerry North. The Healy Raes are South Kerry, so no-one in North Kerry is allowed to vote for him. Now in council elections, lets further cut it down to the constituency, which is probably something like Kenmare or that. In those terms, of the people allowed vote for them, the numbers would be a far higher percentage than what you've outlined.

That's kind of my point too, the way you're breaking it down into specific areas.
Michael Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in South Kerry.
Danny Healy-Rae was only voted for by a minority % of those of a voting age, on the register in Killarney.
Yet ALL of Kerry is being slated for voting them in.

Aye, but the way you said it was that Only x% of the population of Kerry voted for these galoots. My point is that it's a much bigger percentage when you strip out the people that cannot vote for them. I think it's optimistic to say that they wouldn't garner a few more votes from those other areas, at least if the people there were allowed vote for them.

PS. if they lived over the border in West Cork, or West Limerick , or West Clare, or South Offaly, or North Tipp, or South Tipp or anywhere else they'd also attract their fair share of supporters. The old maxim of all politics being local is still very true, and anyone who plays on that will be popular at the polling station.

Yes, but entire areas of Kerry e.g. North Kerry who couldn't and didn't vote for the Healy-Raes shouldn't be lumped in and castigated for voting for the Healy Raes. The Healy-Raes would get very few votes from North Kerry and I've no doubt this will be proved in the next election when Kerry becomes one constituency of 5 seats.

[theticklemister]

Very good highorlow!!!