Swiftly reversing around corners

Provisional changesOh dear. What a shambles.

In the words of Woody Allen, the latest provisional licence debacle is no less than a travesty of a mockery of sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.

When we first learned of the Government's plans to rejig the provo licence laws last week, most sane people reacted positively. The Opposition and anyone else with half a brain have been banging on about our pitiful system of driver testing for years.

It is a complete nonsense that a learner driver can turn up to their driving test, fail miserably and then drive himself or herself home. I did it myself. How I got home alive, filled with indignant "I'll show them who can drive" rage as I was, is beyond me.

It is also bizarre that any hormone-ridden teenager can be allowed, with no formal training, to get behind the wheel of a device capable of untold carnage simply because they have a photo of themselves and the price of a licence. What other civilised country allows that? It's obvious that something had to be done.

So Noel bravely stepped up to the plate. And then, mere hours later, stepped back down again, forced by public outrage and the reality of the unenforceability of the new laws, into the most embarrassing U-turn since the mothballing of the electronic voting system.

Finally, two days later, he scuttled off completely, deferring introduction of the laws until next year and pledging to eliminate driving-test backlogs in the meantime.

It's not looking good for him. People are beginning to suspect that if he was to lead a stag party into a brewery, they'd all come out sober.

If ministries were provisional licences, he'd be on his third. He's evidently far from ready to sit his test. A great man for the three-point turns and reversing around corners, granted, but he has yet to master the skill of making progress without ploughing into immovable obstacles.

He's now facing calls from the Opposition to "rethink his position". Half-hearted ones, admittedly. It's an empirical fact that Fianna Fáil don't do resignations.

Strange as this may seem, I feel a modicum of pity for Dempsey. The fact is, he took a risk, albeit one that has backfired spectacularly, leaving him stalled at the lights, with a line of angry motorists blowing their horns at him as he desperately tries to restart his engine.

But then again, risks are only worth taking if they are calculated. Otherwise they are foolhardy gambles. And foolhardy gambles, particularly with the lives of vulnerable young drivers, are ill-becoming of people in his position.

It has to be said, much of the outcry that forced Dempsey to pull his handbrake turn has been driven by the belief among many of our tiger cubs that driving is an inalienable right, somewhere between the right to freedom of speech and the right to sport a stupid haircut. It's not. It's a privilege. One that has to be earned.

But in order to earn it, they have to be given the opportunity to pass a driving test. Which is where the Government has failed them. Even Martin Cullen, no political genius, knew that to try to impose strict restrictions on learner drivers before the waiting list backlog was cleared was a bad idea.

With inadequate public transport and no chance of sitting a test for months, many provos have no option but to drive, alone and unsupervised. To criminalise them when they have no other choice would be, well, criminal. What else are they to do? Prop the Mammy up in the passenger seat with them?

Dempsey has admitted his "neck is on the line" over this. How noble of him. As if it needed saying.

Whether or not the backlog can be cleared by next year is debatable. If it can't, then the unfortunate charged with taking over the wheel once the Taoiseach has parked Dempsey's career in a loading bay will be on the nation's airwaves, cravenly pulling handbrake turns all over again.