Road Safety: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-17 ============================================================ Maria Byrne (FG), Agricultural Panel I thank the Ministers of State, Deputies Canney and Buttimer, for coming to discuss this all-important issue. I pay a compliment to my colleagues, Senators Seán Kyne and Mark Duffy, and everybody else who was involved in putting together this motion in the name of the Fine Gael Senators. I noted that the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, highlighted scramblers and talked about seeing e-scooters for sale in a shop in Limerick alongside children's goods and prams. It is certainly not the first time I have seen that, but I agree with him that people do not realise the speed limit is 20 km/h and the fact that the highest number of brain injuries being acquired now is from the use of e-scooters. What frightens me is the fact of seeing a parent with a child sharing one scooter. In many cases, they do not have helmets. That is really frightening and is something that needs to be clamped down on. While the Garda is doing its best to clamp down on it, we need to bring in tight regulations to sort this out. I believe in encouraging young people who are in transition year to do their driving theory test. That is happening in a lot of schools but it needs to happen in more. Perhaps it should be compulsory in all schools. The fact there are two to four deaths a year from scooters is a high statistic. So many children are ending up in hospital as a result of the use of scooters. On scramblers, I compliment gardaí in Limerick, especially in Henry Street, who have been running a programme to clamp down on the use of scramblers in public places and are actually confiscating scramblers. Unfortunately, the following day, people have scramblers back in use again. There needs to be tight legislation around that whole side of things. I remember Áine O'Reilly who was killed in a horrific accident over the weekend in Boher, County Limerick, and whose removal is tonight. I think of her and her family because it is a very sad situation. She was on her way to work. There are so many issues around this. We need to bring in really tight legislation. The last thing I will highlight - I am aware of my time - is the use of mobile phones and the fact that people are not wearing safety belts. That is something that needs to be clamped down on an awful lot. --- 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/2026-02-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:38+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-17