fair comment,but at the present moment people can drive around under the influence of Cannabis ,ecstasy,Heroin, Cocaine.,and get away scot free
so what happens is that a message is sent out to teenagers ,who may then decide to take illegaL Drugs,rather than alcohol, and drive.
the road statistics are bad ,because many people drive too fast,drink is only one of the factors involved.
REDSNAPPER,It has affected us already,soon there will not be any rural pubs for you to visit anyway.
it is not criminal to drive under the influence of alcohol,providing you are not over the limit.
the legal limit here is 80 ,and there are two proposals to reduce it to 20 or 50 .
Finally in rural ireland, there is very little public transport ,and very few taxis compared to the population ,[IMO]The Irish government should not reduce the limit in rural areas,until they have provided a proper infrastructure of public transport.
what will happen as pubs close down, is that there will be more drinking at home[unsupervised],which will probably lead to more domestic violence ,[at thepresent time a woman can get some break from an aggressive husband,if he is absent at the pub for some hours]
there will be more people moving from rural areas to the cities,rural Ireland could face big problems through this ill thought out proposal.