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IN A STINGING press statement released this afternoon, Justice Minister Alan Shatter criticised the Irish Independent for its front-page headline today. The headline, “Shatter – I refuse to reveal if I met Lowry”, has been described by Shatter as “predictably a grossly misleading headline”.
The minister said that the headline “quotes me as saying that ‘I refuse to reveal if I met Lowry’” but that what he had actually said was “As Minister for Justice I am not participating in Independent Newspapers agenda”. This second quote is included in the copy of the Irish Independent article twice.
Shatter claims that the newspaper article is part of “an agenda that has been in play for some time” and that he was subject to a “loaded question” from the Independent’s political editor Fionnan Sheahan. (You can read Shatter’s full statement here).
He goes on to say that the question of whether he met Michael Lowry or not in the days following the publication of the Moriarty Report is “an unethical media project of compiling a blacklist of elected TDs that ministers should not meet on legitimate official business and also with whom no conversations should ever take place”.
He added:
Should Ministers only legitimately engage with those TDs with whose words and deeds, both past and present, they agree or with those approved by the media?
This, he said, is a “slippery slope” with “echoes of the discredited McCarthy era of the 1950s in US politics”.
While the exact nature of the “loaded question” is not clear, the Irish Independent is not the only news outlet that has been posing the question of whether Minister Shatter met with Michael Lowry. TheJournal.ie and other media outlets have been asking that question since Saturday – we were told yesterday by a spokesperson for Shatter that “The Minister hasn’t provided me with an answer”. Juno McEnroe of the Irish Examiner reported on Tuesday of last week that Environment Minister Phil Hogan had with Michael Lowry six days after the release of the Moriarty Report.
When asked by TheJournal.ie if this and other media outlets could then conceivably be included in the minister’s allegations of “an unethical media project of compiling a blacklist of elected TDs that ministers should not meet on legitimate business”, a spokesperson for Minister Shatter said that they were “not sure that the minister will have anything further to add” to today’s statement but understood that the statement was “very specific” to the Independent article.
In March of this year, Alan Shatter, speaking during a debate in the Seanad on privacy legislation, accused some Irish journalists of working toward a “contrived narrative” in their articles. He alleged that some journalists left out details in stories to further this agenda.
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Plastic cards!!! About time, only in Ireland does a student ID look more official then the drivers licence
@ Alan, very true! My friend was in the States and said they don’t accept our drivers license as ID. A joke!
i think they should just ban driving under the influence of alcohol completely, get it over and done with
Good idea but not possible as even using mouthwash or having some sherry trifle would potentially mean you fail a zero level breath test.
Finally. It’s nice to see some initiative & solid action.
Newly qualified “R” drivers will have completed 12 mandatory driving lessons and passed the driving test like everyone before them, I don’t understand the need for restrictions.
The entire driving licence-driving education system in this country is a farce. I obtained my full driving licence after only 3 months on a provisional licence. My driving test was done in the daytime in near-perfect weather conditions. I passed with flying colours. Yet nowhere in my training did I learn how to drive in driving snow conditions, in torrential rain, in icy conditions, in thick fog, at night, or indeed in any combination. Too often I see drivers at night with either no lights on or full headlights coming straight at me. We need to have a proper training system put in place that teaches people how to drive in all weather conditions similar to what is done in Finland (where they have driving centres with roads that have simulated ice conditions, gravel tracks, etc.). “R” licences are a good idea too and certainly lower drink-driving limits, but not just applied to young people – they should be applied to everyone.
how can you have different punishments for the same crime?
A lot of the ideas and initiatives are extensions or modifications to plans that were already in place; I do agree blood alcohol levels should be zero no exceptions and match that with a VRT & Tax exemption on vehicles for pubs who provide local transport. More fundamentally we need to start teaching people to drive in schools as a formal subject with the objective that everyone leaves secondary school with their full license on an ‘R’ plate.
As part of the educational process young drivers need to learn about all aspects of driving from vehicle care & maintenance to driving in difficult conditions. Many young drivers dangerously modify vehicles which can affect the handling, stopping distance and safety features of a car and don’t understand the physics behind the changes or dangerous consequences as a result of poorly modified components.
Maybe then we will see a radical change in driver behaviour and reduced road deaths amongst the most vulnerable demographic in our community. The last element we need is high visibility enforcement; we don’t have it and it needs to be introduced; round the clock checkpoints, mandatory breath testing, and car seizures for non-compliance with road traffic legislation. If we are serious we can reduce road injury & death, lower insurance premiums and be less nervous as our kids head towards driving age.
If a tester believes a person has passed the exam and is capable of driving in an educated, safe and responsible manner there should be no need for extra punishments. I agree with the extra penalty points for learner drivers as I think far too many people get their learners permit and head onto the roads with no training and in many cases no full licence driver.
The thing is people generally don’t do their driving test drunk or pick up their mobile in the middle of it. It’s these kind of behaviours that need to be eradicated from the driving mindset, doing a great U point turn during your test doesn’t mean you wont run someone over while using your phone while driving.
So someone who has their licence for less than 2 years should be punished more severely for drink driving than someone who has theirs for ten?
Don’t see why they couldn’t just set the blood alcohol limit at 0mg/100ml, it’d be a lot simpler than creating three different classes of drivers and different laws for each. The clarity would have benefits in itself.
Because it would mean potentially failing a breath test after you used mouthwash in the morning!
In Finland you have to be tested on a skid pan. And you don’t get to drive on public roads until you have your full licence. The licence test itself takes about 1 year that’s if you pass all the tests, if you fail one you have to start again from the beginning.
Probably a little away from the topic but why not just make it a zero tolerance drink driving policy….it amazes me that all countries don’t have this?
The Road Safety Authority will be put in charge of the driving licence system and the testing of commercial vehicles for roadworthiness.
So what will the staff who currently issue licences do?
And we are still left with 2 vehicle testing organisations.
What a waste of money!
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