Healy-Rae made the comments in an interview on Newstalk on Tuesday.
Independent TD Danny Healy-Rae has suggested that he would get on a plane if the pilot flying it had consumed two or three glasses of beer beforehand.
Healy-Rae made the comments in an interview with Pat Kenny on Newstalk on Tuesday, the latest in a string of controversial statements on the issue of drink-driving by the Kerry native.
Responding to a comment from a listener to the show asking Healy-Rae if he would be happy to board a plane being flown by a pilot who had drank three glasses of beer before flying, Healy-Rae responded: “I’d go in the plane myself. I believe what I am saying.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Healy-Rae said: “I never condone drunk driving. At any time in the past, and it doesn’t happen anymore, (that I saw) someone who wasn’t fit to drive… I took them home myself.
“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.”
Healy-Rae made the comments with regard to a proposed bill by Minister for Transport Shane Ross (who was also interviewed on the show), which would see motorists caught drink-driving handed automatic three-month driving bans.
The Road Traffic (Fixed Penalty Notice – Drink Driving) Bill 2017, proposes an automatic ban for anyone caught driving with a blood alcohol level of between 50mg and 80mg per 100ml (bans are currently in effect for a blood alcohol level of above 80mg per 100ml).
Healy-Rae has been criticised for comments made about drink-driving in the past, having said that “nobody in my neck of the woods has caused a fatality after three glasses of Guinness”.
He also suggested that eating a big meal before driving can have the same effect on motorists as consuming small accounts of alcohol before getting behind the wheel.
You can listen to the interview with Pat Kenny in full on Newstalk here.
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