Some of the hokum peddled over the last week is laughable, some of it contemptible.

In pursuit of profit for one vested interest, votes for another, a picture has been presented of rural Ireland and the pint of plain.

The protagonist in this vista is an elderly man who lives alone in a house up a boreen, many miles from the next vestige of civilisation. His only contact with the outside world is through frequent visits to his local pub. Therein, he drinks two or three pints, and, his faculties slightly softened, he drives home, presenting harm to neither man nor beast.

Now his life has been shattered. He is isolated from the world under the yolk of random breath-testing. Any thoughts of taking the chance of heading down for a few pints are quelled at the prospect of encountering the local garda, an officer who has transmogrified into a terrorist . This bastard is prowling the boreens at closing time with his breathalyser. Worse still, after snatching a few hours' kip, he's back out the next morning, hiding behind hedges with his implement of terror, intent on nabbing our hero, determined to grind the poor man into submission.

Does our protagonist exist?

Or did he, in a former life, sally down to the pub, put away the guts of a gallon, and weave his way home behind the wheel? And was he in full command of his faculties the following morning when he took off by car again?

According to �?amon �? Cuív, a champion of rural Ireland, a driver would have to have consumed at least six or seven pints before registering over the permissible limit the morning after. Yet we are being told that pubs are shutting down because locals are afraid to indulge in the two or three they partook in the days before random breath-testing. Either they used to drive home nicely sozzled before, or the new order is driving them to drink far more. Who's kidding who?

Rural Ireland is entitled to be angry at its neglect. The private and public sectors have drained isolated towns and villages of the lifeblood of social centres in the name of a strict market economy.

Banks have pulled out, creameries have been made redundant as the agri-business sector consolidated, going forward. The state has been equally negligent, shutting down post offices and garda stations purely on a commercial basis.

The rural transport scheme, a fob to community support, is nowhere near as prevalent as it should be. But this hand-wringing about random breath-testing killing off rural Ireland is complete hokum.

What we are witnessing is, to borrow a phrase, the last sting of a dying wasp. The political power of the publicans has ebbed far out to the wilderness over the last few years. The party's over, lads.

Whether it be in the city, town or rural Ireland, people no longer attend the pub to the same extent and the publican no longer treats his local TD like Pavlov's dog.

The Vintners' Federation of Ireland says 200 rural hostelries have closed in the last few years. So what? Many of them commanded huge sums for their licence. Cashing in on a licence or selling premises for property development is what pubs do these days. Over a dozen have shut down in Cork city centre, many miles from rural Ireland.

What would the ranks of the dead have made of it all?

Seven years ago, random breath-testing was promised as government policy.

Between then and its final implementation, more than 2,500 people died on the roads.

Since testing was introduced last July, there has been a 30% drop in fatalities. The Road Safety Authority attributes this largely to the new regime.

How many hundreds might have been saved if the regime hadn't been prey to tortured delay at the behest of vested interests? That is a real cause for hand-wringing.