Drink drive warning as councillor faces party axe
Road safety chiefs today warned even one alcoholic drink affects a driver's judgement after Fine Gael moved to expel a councillor who admitted he was a drink driver.
The opposition party took action after Tipperary Councillor Michael Fitzgerald said he drove home after having around three or four pints.
Cllr Fitzgerald, from Golden, Co Tipperary, admitted to having lost his licence after failing a drink-driving test.
Noel Brett, chief executive of the Road Safety Authority (RSA), said: “I suppose initial response from the Road Safety Authority would be to restate our message never ever drink and drive. Just one drink does effect a person’s ability to drive.”
He added: “Three or four pints certainly do. The medical research and all of the medical evidence is telling us that just one drink effects you.”
Cllr Fitzgerald told Tipp FM radio station he had never killed anyone through driving after consuming alcohol.
But Mr Brett warned: “I wouldn’t be using whether someone has been killed or injured as a benchmark. The reality is that drink driving is not acceptable.”
Mr Brett said many countries’ limit used lower or zero blood alcohol levels than Ireland as medical research had proven even one drink affects judgement.
The councillor said most fatal crashes involved 17 to 22-year-olds and were as a result of speed. He said the mandatory drink-driving crackdown by gardaí was damaging the culture of rural Ireland.
Cllr Fitzgerald told Tipp FM: “I have neighbours, and I have friends, and I have people that go to the pub every single night of the week and they drink three or four pints and they go home, they drive home in the jeep or in the car. They are not drunk they are well able to take it.
“Another thing that has happened quite a bit and I think it is totally unjust and unfair, is catching people the morning after, breathalysing them and putting them off the road the morning after it is wrong.”
Mr Brett said: “We have to restate it is totally unacceptable to drink and drive and the comment in relation to morning after also needs picking up because that is a time when there is an interaction potentially between fatigue and alcohol. And it is also the time when some of our most vulnerable road users are actually on the road, they are young children going to school and people going to and from work.”
The RSA said since the introduction of random alcohol testing there have been 30 less deaths during the same four-month period in 2005.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is to recommend to the party’s executive council that the whip be removed from Cllr Fitzgerald following his remarks.
A party spokesman said: “The law of the land must be upheld and must be seen to be upheld. Enda Kenny was extremely angry when he heard about Councillor Fitzgerald’s comments and he has moved swiftly to remove the party whip.”
