Garda Commissioner supports outright ban on e-scooters on Irish roads
By Bairbre Holmes, Press Association
The Garda Commissioner has said he would “absolutely” support an outright ban on e-scooters on Irish roads.
Justin Kelly’s comments come the day after the Taoiseach told the Dáil he is “leaning towards” a full ban on the public use of the vehicles.
Kelly appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport on Wednesday and was asked by chairman Michael Murphy whether a “complete ban” on public roads and in public spaces would be his “preferred option” for regulating e-scooters.
Law-abiding, working, young students, even people like that, are using them badly. It's nearly the exception to see people who have a high-vis jacket, a helmet on, behaving really responsibly...
He replied that while An Garda Síochána will “police whatever the legislation in place is”, he “absolutely” would support an outright ban.
E-scooters are being used “without a doubt” to “facilitate localised drug dealing in our communities”, he said, and can make it “very easy for them to evade An Garda Síochána”.
He said he had recently seen two gardaí who were injured on duty, one seriously, while intercepting drug dealing on e-scooters.
“It just shows the challenges that we face around it,” he added.
He acknowledged that while “certainly there are people who use them very safely and responsibly”, it is the experience of gardaí that “there is just so much bad behaviour”.
“It’s not like it’s limited bad behaviour. There is so much bad behaviour with them.”
He continued: “All our experience and all the reporting coming up to me is even around very decent people.
“Law-abiding, working, young students, even people like that, are using them badly.
“It’s nearly the exception to see people who have a high-vis jacket, a helmet on, behaving really responsibly, stopping at the junctions; it’s nearly the exception to see that in parts of the city now.”
He said that he had come to his opinion on a total ban because “when I look at it in totality, the balance of it has tipped so far”.
Outlining the issues with regulating e-scooters, Kelly said: “My understanding is that it’s not possible to get these vehicles insured”.
He added that while it would be useful for gardaí to have them registered and licensed, there are already “many, many, many thousands of them already in existence” and it would be “quite challenging” to do this retrospectively.
In addition, he said, there are existing issues with licence plates being obscured on large vehicles.
“You can just imagine what would be going on with people who use these scooters for drug dealing, for drug-related intimidation, with a small little license plate,” he said.
