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Kerry TD says he’d ‘be happy to get in a plane’ flown by pilot who has had ‘two or three glasses of beer’

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KERRY TD Danny Healy-Rae said he had never seen anyone whose ability to drive was affected by three glasses of beer. Speaking on national radio today, Deputy Healy-Rae said: “I never condone drunk driving. At any time in the past, and it doesn’t happen any more, [when I saw] someone who wasn’t fit to drive... I took them home myself.”
The Kerry TD, who was speaking on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, added: “Until the day I die, I don’t believe that anyone that has had just two or three glasses [of beer] - a pint and a half - that they’re a liability or a danger on the road.”
Deputy Healy-Rae was speaking before Cabinet deferred a decision on whether to allow a free vote on controversial proposals to impose a mandatory driving ban on all motorists convicted of drink driving.
The Kerry TD opposes moves to increase penalties for drink driving and said he would be happy to get into a plane being flown by someone who has had two or three glasses of beer. “I’d go in the plane myself. I believe what I am saying,” he said.
Asked why a designated driver system would not work in rural area, he said: “In rural Ireland, we’re talking about people living on their own, [...]Many of them where the nearest neighbour is two or three miles away, who doesn’t go to the pub. They are so isolated.”