From todays Times "Free pub transport proposed for isolated rural areas" So because of new random breath testing (1), pub trade is dropping (3) as people are presumable less willing to drink-drive(2), all other taxpayers will have to subsidise publicans by paying for a rural transport scheme to get theirt customers to the pub? Minister O' Cuiv said apparently that the scheme is "a mechanism to deal with market failure" Please note Minister that being too cheap a cunt to spend money on a taxi to go to the pub is not a "market failure". Surely if this is such a problem it would still pay publicans to organise their own transport for their customers.
(1)Random breath testing seems pretty sneaky to me, along the lines of "If you haven't done anything wrong you've nothing to worry about". The situation previously, was that the gardai needed a "reasonable suspicion" to stop and breathalyse someone. Random breath testing did away with that irritant. But if it's not obvious that someone may be drunk (enough, in order to form a reasonable suspicion), are they really all that dangerous?
(2)Taking publicans at face value, this massive loss of business would imply that many people were drinking and driving before. (I don't take this at face value by the way, this is simply grasping at straws, see 3)
(3)From what I hear pub trade was dropping before this (and the smoking ban) simply because it's cheaper to buy drink in a shop and have your friends over, with the added bonus of quicker service and control over who forms your drinking company.
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