{"id":599477,"date":"2026-08-20T19:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/599477\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T19:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:54:09","slug":"grace-lynchs-father-tells-of-near-miss-with-scrambler-bike-months-after-daughters-death-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/599477\/","title":{"rendered":"Grace Lynch\u2019s father tells of near miss with scrambler bike months after daughter\u2019s death \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father of the Dublin<\/a> girl killed by a scrambler bike in January has written to the Minister for Justice<\/a> asking how many CCTV cameras are actually working on public roads. <\/p>\n

Martin Lynch\u2019s daughter Grace, aged 16, was killed<\/a> following a fatal collision with a scrambler bike on the Ratoath Road in Finglas.<\/p>\n

In April he, wife Siobhan and son Jude, had a close call with a scrambler on the Cardiffsbridge Road in Finglas, he told The Irish Times<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The male on the scrambler drove through a red light while doing a wheelie. Lynch managed to stop Siobhan and Jude, who was cycling a bike, from stepping on to the road.<\/p>\n

He said that when Siobhan \u201clet a roar at him\u201d, the male stopped \u201cand stuck his fingers up and drove off up the road popping more wheelies\u201d. <\/p>\n

He reported the incident to the garda\u00ed and the following day he met Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly, a meeting that had been planned before the incident. His wife did not attend as she was \u201cshook up\u201d from the previous day\u2019s incident.<\/p>\n

Martin said he was told by a Garda liaison officer that the camera on Cardiffsbridge Road was broken and had been for a \u201cnumber of months\u201d before Grace was fatally injured.*<\/p>\n

Martin said the road is \u201cone of the main roads for scramblers in Finglas\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Siobhan or Jude had have been hit that day and there\u2019s nobody around, the person that was responsible probably would have gotten away with it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He wrote to Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan \u201cregarding the state of play with the cameras\u201d. He asked the Minister: how many cameras are the Garda\u00ed in control of? How many are working? Is there a repair plan in place for when they break? And whose job is it to service or maintain the cameras?<\/p>\n

Martin is now calling for garda\u00ed to receive more training regarding scramblers and e-scooters.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll we\u2019re asking for as a family is that the people in the control room are qualified and the people on the ground are qualified. These two qualified people making the right decision. Not two unqualified people making possibly the right decision or possibly the wrong decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope that comes in as quick as possible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

He said in the UK stingers (tire-deflation devices), containment (cornering a rider in a restricted space) and plain-clothed officers are used.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing is not going to fix all this,\u201d he said, adding that Ireland would need to adopt a \u201ccollection of methods and they all work together\u201d like in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t just let people do what they want because they\u2019re on two wheels or they\u2019re in a stolen car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin, who said he has been in contact with members of the public, garda\u00ed and councils about the cameras in general, said he has discovered that \u201ca lot\u201d of the cameras outside of the city centre, \u201care not working\u201d.<\/p>\n

Martin said he is not asking for \u201cmass surveillance of people\u201d but said, \u201cthe fact that they\u2019re [the cameras] there and they\u2019re not working is worrying me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident in April with a scrambler is not Lynch\u2019s only experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every day, I see something happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A week after Grace\u2019s death, he said he was driving on the Tolka Valley Road when a scrambler drove towards his car on the wrong side of a road on a wheelie. He said he had to stop his car.<\/p>\n

As well as that, he has had e-scooter and e-bike users come off footpaths in front of him while he has been driving. He has also seen them driving the wrong way around roundabouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what happened to my daughter, and I wouldn\u2019t like it to happen to anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

In April, Grace\u2019s Law<\/a> came into effect to ban the use of scrambler motorbikes in public places.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the Department of Justice said, \u201cMinister O\u2019Callaghan is committed to ensuring that Garda\u00ed have the resources, equipment and legislation they need to fulfil their vital roads policing role.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added that the Government is preparing legislation to give \u201cgreater protection\u201d to garda\u00ed when pursuing vehicles of any type that have refused to stop when directed to do so.<\/p>\n

The minister wants this legislation to provide protection to garda\u00ed \u201cby addressing the prosecution or the fear of prosecution of garda\u00ed for dangerous driving when engaged in such pursuit,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed have been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

*This article was updated on August 20th, 2026 as a previous version said the Garda Commissioner informed Martin Lynch about the broken camera <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of the Dublin girl killed by a scrambler bike in January has written to the Minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,61,60,18573,43,11318],"class_list":["post-599477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-news","tag-road-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599477","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=599477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}