Booze bus plan a bid to buy votes

LIKE it or not, Minister Éamon Ó Cuív’s proposal to set up a night-time rural transport scheme is a blatant pre-election bid to buy votes.

The notion of laying on ‘booze buses’ was clearly triggered by the garda clampdown on drink driving which, unfortunately, is having an adverse impact on the social life of rural Ireland.

To argue that services available in urban Ireland should also be in rural areas, is perfectly valid. But it stretches the imagination when the minister insists the real purpose of a year-long rural bus pilot scheme is to ferry people to mass, youth clubs, bingo, and the like.