Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 June 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

General Scheme of the Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2019: Minister for Transport

Photo of Paul McAuliffePaul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and committee for allowing me to be here. The Minister is bringing forward important legislation. It is trying to include as much reform as is possible in one piece of legislation. The area in which I have a particular interest is the issue of scrambler bikes. I thank everybody who has been involved in campaigning on this issue, primarily the communities throughout the country who have been impacted. Whether you are in Ballyfermot, Ballymun, Finglas or parts of Limerick, you will be impacted by this issue. While it has been dealt with many times in the Dáil, the Minister is bringing forward legislation that will comprehensively deal with it. I thank people in the communities who campaigned. I also thank the other Opposition parties who brought forward Bills in this area, including us when were in opposition. I thank all the parties that will support this.

I urge the committee to do everything it can to support the Minister to get this legislation through. The changes in this legislation will save lives. It does two things. In essence, it gives gardaí the powers to seize these vehicles without having to pursue the person involved. Often, the person involved is a child and we do not want to put that person at risk. Even though he or she might be creating terror in his or her community, we do not want a situation where that child is injured in a pursuit by gardaí. This is a significant change in policy. Gardaí would have the power to go onto the curtilage of someone’s property to take a vehicle they believe has been used illegally as a scrambler. That will significantly assist gardaí in our communities. The legislation also brings forward a change which will mean that certain places where we would not have been able to limit or prohibit the use of scramblers because they were not covered by the road traffic Acts now will be covered.

It was always the case that changing this provision would be difficult because of the common law casebook that so finely balances the definition of a public place. The Minister and the Attorney General have been creative in how they have brought forward this amendment that designates a new category of vehicles. I thank the Minister for both of those provisions. He has been joined in it by the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, who has brought both carrot and stick with proposals to allow youth services to deal with this issue by providing alternative diversion activities as well as for the safe use of scrambler bikes in designated places.

I ask the Chair, members of the committee, and Minister, Deputy Ryan, to do whatever they can to get this legislation through, because while I accept the focus is more wide-ranging than the issue of scrambler bikes, I know many communities throughout the country will thank them for getting it through because this legislation will save lives.

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