Paul Donnelly: Frustration Over e-scooters as Children Suffer
Paul Donnelly speaks in the Dail about ongoing failures to tackle illegal e-scooters and e-bikes, the slow rollout of policing tools bought in 2022, and the human cost in communities now. He demands clarity on when resources such as electric bikes and drones will be used and highlights recent injuries and deaths.
Community impact and anger
Paul Donnelly describes deep frustration from residents who live with the problem daily. He cites multiple children whose lives have been changed in two weeks and warns that fear is spreading in neighbourhoods where offenders are often known to victims.
Delays in policing technology
Donnelly notes that drones purchased in 2022 have taken years to be deployed and asks why other tools used in Britain, including electric bikes and off-road vehicles, are not being adopted here. He presses for clear answers from the Minister for Justice and for resources to allow Gardaí to challenge offenders safely.
Risks and legal constraints
The speaker acknowledges the dangers of pursuit tactics and the legal limits on aggressive methods used elsewhere. He stresses that public safety must be balanced against risks to officers and the public, and cites recent seizures and operational work while insisting more must be done.
Legislation and community protection
Donnelly calls for stronger protections, legislative change and new operational measures such as DNA tagging and drone deployment. He highlights the scale of seizures reported this year and underlines the need to support communities living in fear and facing threats after reporting crime.
Consequences and next steps
The address ends with a call for decisive action: clearer timelines for equipment deployment, better resourcing for policing in parks and lanes, and an urgent focus on preventing further harm to children and neighbours.
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To be honest with you I'm really angry, I'm really frustrated. We've been at this for years and years and years. Why? Because we live there. We live in the communities. It's our communities that are affected by this every single day. Not just this day, not just last week, not five years ago, not ten years ago. This is how long this has been going on and I feel it's been ignored for all of that time. And it's now because we have the mixture of e-scooters and illegal e-scooters and e-bikes. We've got six children. Six children in two weeks have been... lives utterly changed and transformed for the worst. They will never be the same again because of these things and I find it really, really frustrating. In 2022 I asked about drones, the Minister for Justice, and it came back that they were being purchased and we look at legislation, we look at guidelines, we look at this. It's 2026 and they're still not in use and thankfully now they will be in use soon, but that's four years. Four years you've had them and they're still not in use and yet we have, you know, Mountain Rescue use them, the Army use them, we get coffee delivered by them a couple of weeks ago in Dublin 15. I just find it really frustrating. Everything is slow. Everything takes ages and we've got people who are dying on our streets, children who are dying on our streets, children who have been left in a coma in our streets. I find it really frustrating. The simple question I'll ask is, in Britain, all over Britain, they have electric bikes, it was referenced by Mr Neillan, electric bikes that the police have to physically chase them. You've already told us that you don't have the ability to go into parks, get out into the lanes and all of that. When are electric bikes going to be used? I've asked the Minister of Justice on a dozen occasions so far and I still haven't heard a clear answer. When are you going to get the resources to actually go and do this and challenge them? So resources certainly aren't an issue for us around purchase or procurement. In all the discussions that I've had with my people that work in this area, electric bikes has never come up as one of the key solutions to this. The ones that I spoke about earlier certainly have, but electric bikes haven't. And I just might turn to Catriona. Electric scramblers, sorry, I was doing a clarification. There are now electric scramblers involved. The police have them in Britain, all over Britain. Yeah, the Saron bikes, yeah, sorry, I understand that. So look, we have trialled some off-road vehicles for the guards, but it goes back to some of the things I spoke about earlier. Pursuit for us is just, it is very risky. It's risky for the guards, it's risky for other members of the public. As I said, only last week we were involved in a pursuit. Absolute innocent member of the public was injured. So just out of respect, when do we then put the public's safety higher than people who do this? Okay, well look, I'll be very straight about this. I'll be very straight about this. I'm the Guarding Commissioner and I think anybody who deals with me knows I have a fairly robust response around policing. However, you look what goes on in the UK and they knock people off bikes and they do this. You've seen, I'm sure you've seen all the footage in the UK, how they do it. If we did that here, okay, the first thing would be all those guards would be prosecuted, they'd be all in court. So we certainly, when I'm the Commissioner, we certainly won't be doing that now, because if I asked my members to do that now, they would be all going to court. So the reality at the moment, for all the reasons I spoke about earlier, we won't be doing that. But some of the things I think, and I don't want to be overly negative, because there is a lot of positive things around changes in legislation. We've all spoken around it, about protection for guards, around potential ban around e-scooters, some of our new abilities around drones, DNA tagging, all our operations. Like I say, 1,865 seizures this year. So, you know, I think there is a lot going on, but I just finished by saying, Deputy, I certainly share your frustrations. I'm not for a minute am I sitting here saying we're in a fantastic situation. We certainly aren't. There's really, you know, and my sympathy goes out for the communities, but just to go back to the communities that are being affected, you're absolutely right. It's communities being affected, but it's people in their own communities are doing it. So it's people in some of these areas. A lot of fear. Yeah, but it's their own neighbours who are doing it. The person who lost a child has been threatened. There are windows that have been put in, it's been threatened, the light's been threatened. So you can imagine somebody sitting in their home and they're going to ring and say, the chap next door has it. Thank you, Deputy. I'm just conscious we have...
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