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

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I fully agree with what she said on the courage of Siobhán Lynch in respect of the loss of her daughter Grace and pursuing with great clarity the need for absolute change.
The legislation has been passed by this House. I convened a meeting a number of years ago to set that in train and the legislation was passed. Additional powers have been given to the Garda and additional laws have been passed as a result of that. In particular, dangerous driving has become an offence everywhere, not just in public places. An Garda Síochána has been granted new powers of seizure and has used those powers. Close to 300 scramblers and quads have been seized as a result of that. The third element is that the Department of Transport has been working with the Garda to finalise a straightforward ban in areas where they are being used. I am convening an immediate meeting between the relevant Departments to get this done. My view, and the advice from the Attorney General is very clear, is that it does not need additional laws to do this. It will be done. I have made that very clear to all Ministers and officials. There are significant powers in place to intervene, confiscate and prohibit such vehicles on our public roads.
Related to that, we have to move with speed on e-scooters. The level of injuries being reported from consultants in emergency medicine, particularly brain injuries as well as physical injuries, is far too high. People might have welcomed them some years ago, thinking they were a new mode of transport, but they are now a very significant danger to the public and to those using them. They have to be regulated. We have to take a really hard look at this because of the level of injuries to young people, in particular, who use such vehicles.
The scrambler issue, for me, is very straightforward. Scramblers have no place on our roads. There is a lot of other activity related to them, as someone referenced during the day, in terms of illegal activity, perhaps, in some cases and the utilisation of scramblers in particular.

---

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