New service offers motorists a lift home – in their own car!

Ireland’s first designated driver service has opened in Galway, allowing motorists to get themselves and their cars picked up after a night out and dropped home for a fee.

DriveMyCar.ie charges motorists a fee of €35 to get collected in town and chauffeured up to 15km away; the fee is higher for longer distances.

That would cover travelling as far as Claregalway, beyond Oranmore and parts of Corrandulla.

The brainchild of Sligo businessman Alex McAleenan, he heard about the service in South Africa and decided to introduce it here, with plans to roll it out to every town and city across the State by the end of the year.

“This makes it very easy to go out. You don’t have to catch a taxi into town, you don’t have to wait for a taxi once the pubs and clubs close and when you wake up in the morning the car is outside your door, so you don’t have to catch another one in to collect it,” he explained.

He only set up in Galway three weeks ago and has already had pickups. He will have three teams of two drivers based in the city to do pick-ups, which can be booked online once signed up as a member.

For more on this, see this week’s Galway City Tribune