A new incentive is encouraging tourists driving in the Scottish Highlands to display T-plates.

The green tourist plates will be rolled out in a bid to reduce the number of road accidents in the country.

It comes as many accidents occur due to people being inexperienced with driving on the left-hand side of the road.

Is this initiative something Ireland should do too?

Minister of State and Independent TD for Kerry Michael Healy Rae said he would object to such a suggestion if it were to be brought forth.

“First of all, we are the most welcoming country in the whole of Europe and indeed the whole of the Western world,” he told Lunchtime Live.

“I don’t want to be branding people when they come into a place that they would have to be identified in this place; it would make no sense.

“How any person could actually imagine that would improve road safety or how they would dream that up in their heads I do not know, but I think it’s wrong, I think it’s unnecessary.

“If the people in the Highlands in Scotland want to do it, well, like my late mother said, ‘If the rest of them are jumping into the river, it doesn’t mean you have to do so’.”

Auto on narrow two-way road descending the Conor Pass from Dingle town to Dunmore Head, Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland. Image: M. Timothy O'Keefe. 14 May 2013

Brenda Bolger from the School of Motoring in Kerry disagreed.

“It isn’t for the shame of the tourists coming over here, putting a ‘T’ plate on the car is letting all the other road users be aware that person is inexperienced driving in this environment,” she said.

“That can only be a good thing; most hire car companies, you will see the logos of the companies as stickers in the back windows anyways, so most people would know that these people have hired that particular car.”

Ms Bolger said that while she has driven extensively in the US and is used to driving on the other side of the road, “it is a new learning experience”.

“It’s like taking an experienced driver in one environment and having them drive in a completely new environment that’s foreign to them,” she said.

Main image: Woman stands on stone fence in scenic irish road. She is driving rental car.