Road Safety Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-29 ============================================================ Seán Canney (IND), Galway East There are a few elements to this. There is the legislation, enforcement and then we come back to the basic question about antisocial behaviour. It is important that we act on all of this across government. As I outlined earlier, we have agreed to introduce regulations that ban the use of scramblers on public roads and in public spaces. That memo will come to the Government in the coming weeks. Under the 2023 Act, dangerous driving is an offence everywhere, not just in public spaces. The Act also empowers members of the Garda to seize a scrambler if the Garda member's reasonable belief is that the vehicle has been, is being or will be driven dangerously in any location. While the use of scramblers on the roads may be legal in certain cases at the moment before this regulation is updated, it is always an offence to drive them dangerously. Gardaí have enforcement powers to stop and seize the vehicle where this is the case. There is another issue relating to the gardaí seizing the machine. What happens with the machine then? We are looking at that as well. The Senator mentioned consequences. One of the consequences is in relation to what happens with the scrambler - the offending machine - that has been seized. That is something that we are actively looking at. I wish to stress this for the general public. Gardaí have powers of enforcement right now. They can stop people and they can bring people to court. They can seize these if they are being driven dangerously. The active ongoing enforcement of the legislation by gardaí will be a significant deterrent to those using vehicles illegally and in an antisocial manner. I welcome that gardaí have been seizing these scramblers over the past two years. The legislation that was introduced in 2023 has been enacted and it is being enforced. Maybe there has not been enough enforcement. An Garda Síochána has had numbers that were not the required numbers. The numbers are building. As the numbers of gardaí are building, we will see more and more coming into road traffic policing. I am doing a promotion of driving safety for this weekend. It is a bank holiday weekend. My plea to the public is no matter if they are in a car, truck, van or on a bicycle or motorbike or whatever form of transport they have, they have a personal responsibility as well. It is important that people remember why they are going on a journey. They are going on a journey to get to a destination. That is the primary objective. Some cars are like offices and cinemas. They have all kinds of screens and so on in the cars. These are distractions. The mobile phone is a distraction. I have asked people, young and old, when they get into a car to check their surroundings, put on their seat belts, put their mobile phones in the glove compartment and tell their passengers not to use their phones while they are in the car. It could be a passenger that says to a driver, "Look what's on the phone." The driver will get to see that when they arrive at their destination. The primary purpose of using transport is to get from A to B safely. The Senator mentioned education. Next week, the Road Safety Authority, RSA, will present in the audiovisual room. I hope that all Oireachtas Members will attend. It shows what is being done, how it is being done and making people aware of all the work that is going on in terms of education at preschool level, national school, secondary school, transition year and third level education. The RSA and safety officers around every local authority are engaging in all of this. It is important that we keep telling people and reminding them that they need to be safe on the roads. It should be an agenda item for every meeting. For young fellas and girls coming together to train for football, hurling, camogie, soccer, rugby or whatever it may be, the last item on the agenda after a training session should be, "Take care going home. By the way, I see you don't have a hi-vis jacket, here is one." They are available. The RSA will provide them. Small things matter. As public representatives, it is important that we continue to encourage people to do the right thing. I thank the Senator for tabling this Commencement matter. I think of the parents and family this week and what they are going through. Again, I offer my sincere sympathies on behalf of the Government, the Department and everybody in Ireland on such a tragic loss of a beautiful young girl. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-29