{"id":555263,"date":"2026-07-18T00:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555263\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T00:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T00:40:09","slug":"e-scooters-face-strict-regulations-if-government-opts-not-to-ban-them-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555263\/","title":{"rendered":"E-scooters face strict regulations if Government opts not to ban them \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

E-scooters will be subject to strict regulation if the Government does not ban them, Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin and Minister for State for Road Safety Se\u00e1n Canney have recently said they were leaning towards a blanket ban<\/a> because of the prevalence of serious head injuries among young people.<\/p>\n

However, speaking on Friday, O\u2019Callaghan was more circumspect. Pointing to a meeting of senior Ministers on the issue this Monday, he said he would not pre-empt the discussion. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously a balancing act that needs to be weighed up here,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn the one hand, there is the threat that\u2019s caused to the public from the proliferation of e-scooters. I have to say, however, the Garda here is doing a good job in seizing not just e-scooters but scramblers since the start of this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that there had been 1,200 seizures in 2026. <\/p>\n

No matter what laws were in place, or what level of enforcement imposed, he continued, there would always be examples of people breaking the law. <\/p>\n

He said the Children\u2019s Health Ireland (CHI) report<\/a> which showed a high number of serious head injuries in children who had e-scooter crashes was \u201creally worrying\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a broad response to this,\u201d he said. \u201cCertainly, if they\u2019re not going to be banned, they need to be regulated. We need to ensure that that happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CHI report found the number of children and young people admitted to hospital with traumatic brain injuries following e-scooter incidents has increased by 50 per cent year on year.<\/p>\n

There were 1,130 attendances to emergency departments at CHI between January 2021 and last August due to e-scooter-related injuries. A dozen children were treated by Temple Street\u2019s neurosurgery team with traumatic brain injuries between June 2024 and May 2025.<\/p>\n

In the D\u00e1il on Thursday, T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said the situation was now \u201cat a tipping point where we need to move and move quickly\u201d. He is to meet senior Ministers to discuss options including a potential ban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"E-scooters will be subject to strict regulation if the Government does not ban them, Minister for Justice Jim…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,30791,61,60,18573,1843,43,104799],"class_list":["post-555263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-children-s-health-ireland-chi","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-sean-canney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}