A recent report by Children’s Health Ireland raised concerns about traumatic brain injuries being sustained by children using e-scooters<\/a>.<\/p>\nE-scooter users must be at least 16 years of age, and devices used on public roads cannot exceed a design speed of 20km\/h.<\/p>\n
Any measures must give clarity to e-scooter users and garda\u00ed – Canney<\/p>\n
Minister of State at the Department of Transport Se\u00e1n Canney said any measures taken to deal with e-scooters must be effective and give clarity to e-scooter users and garda\u00ed who have to enforce legislation.<\/p>\n
Speaking on RT\u00c9’s Morning Ireland, Mr Canney said there are a number of options available around e-scooters – including an all-out ban.<\/p>\n
“Most important to me is how quickly can we bring it in and how effective it will be… the status quo will not prevail.”<\/p>\n
He said the negative effects of e-scooters on people’s lives, in particular children, must be considered.<\/p>\n
“The Department of Health has completed a report for us that we will hopefully see this morning,” he added.<\/p>\n
“The effect that e-scooters are having on people’s lives and children, and how many of them end up in hospital and the type of injuries they have, I think that’s very important when you’re making a decision on what road to pursue – that we have all the facts in front of us,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Canney said legislation is also needed to protect garda\u00ed in pursuit of e-scooters or scramblers and that garda\u00ed are properly trained in that type of pursuit.<\/p>\n
“Parents and guardians have a responsibility, and I would tell them that if you want your child to enjoy their summer, the last thing you should allow them to do is go on an e-scooter.<\/p>\n
“You just need to look at the facts and figures from CHI in relation to the number of children who are in hospital as a result of e-scooter injuries, particularly those with head injuries,” Mr Canney added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the decision by two online retailers to remove some e-scooters from sale was welcomed by a number of politicians over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Amazon and AliExpress said that they will not sell e-scooters that are not in compliance with Irish law.<\/p>\n
Fine Gael’s Michael Murphy called on all retailers to follow the lead of Amazon and AliExpress and pull the sale of e-scooters until they comply with legislation in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Mr Murphy was informed by Amazon at the weekend that the electric foldable e-scooter was removed from sale and an investigation is now under way at the online retail giant.<\/p>\n
Mr Murphy said retailers must take responsibility for how they market and sell e-scooters.<\/p>\n
He called on all retailers selling e-scooters, which are marketed at children or are capable of exceeding the legal speed limit, to remove them from sale on their platforms or shop floor.<\/p>\n
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman also welcomed the move and urged other retailers to follow suit.<\/p>\n
In a statement he said that while the decision is welcome, “you could still go into a toy shop and buy an e-scooter for a child as young as six that is capable of travelling up to 16km\/h. These vehicles should be banned outright”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Taoiseach, T\u00e1naiste, Minister for Justice, Minister of State for Transport and the Garda Commissioner are to meet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-558689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558689","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=558689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}