Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-27
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I want to express my deepest sympathies to the family of Grace Lynch who was mowed down by a scrambler and who died as a result. No words can console the family. Nothing that I can say can in any way ease the devastation, the pain, the hurt and the anger that Grace’s family feels right now. I understand that anger, and I understand the devastation that they are going through. They have lost a beautiful daughter who should be going to school and who should be with her friends today. There is an investigation under way.
We did act at the time in respect of legislation. I recall that Deputies across the House – including, on our side, Deputy Paul McAuliffe, in particular, and Deputy John Lahart – pressed for legislation to deal with the scourge of scramblers in our communities. As a result of that and of work involving the then Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, the Minister, Deputy Browne, and Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, legislative changes were brought through the House to tackle the scourge of dangerous driving and the antisocial use of scramblers and quad bikes. Those changes were introduced by means of the Road Traffic Act 2023, which dealt with dangerous driving becoming an offence everywhere, not just in public places. It is difficult to comprehend that was not the state of play before that. An Garda Síochána has been granted new powers of seizure. There is also a power in that legislation to provide for the prohibition or the restriction of use of classes of vehicles in particular places. As a result of that legislation, in 2024 and 2025 about 300 scramblers and quad bikes were seized by the Garda. That is not enough.
There is a third aspect to this. I am convening an immediate meeting of the Departments of Transport and justice. I had to convene a meeting in 2020 or 2021 to start the ball rolling and get the legislation to which I refer done. There was a degree of resistance at the time and claims to the effect that it could not be done and so on. It was done. However, the final regulations need to be dealt with. They should already have been. I am very clear about it. In my view, it will happen. It should have happened in terms of the formulation and dealing with of those regulations. I understand fully the anger of people in working-class areas, particularly Finglas. There is no need for and there should be no scramblers on public roads. We have it within our power to make that happen, and it will happen.
That said, nothing can ever ease the devastation the Lynch family have experienced as a result of the loss of Grace from that collision the other night. The Deputy can rest assured we are at work. I have spoken to the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, this morning. That work needs to be completed. Progress was made on a number of fronts but that needs to be completed.
Is uafás den scoth é seo. Tá sé uafásach ar fad. Is olc an scéal an méid atá tar éis tarlú i mbás Grace Lynch. Déanaimid comhbhrón lena clann ach ní leor é sin. Caithfimid an reachtaíocht a chur i bhfeidhm ina iomláine.

---

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/dail/2026-01-27/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:01+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-27