Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I confirm that I am in Leinster House 2000. I wish the committee members and the witnesses a very happy and healthy 2022. I thank the witnesses for their opening statements and for their contributions so far. I have been following the meeting all the way through.

I refer to something the Minister of State, Deputy Hildegarde Naughton, said in the Dáil Chamber when this matter was last discussed. This does not give full context, but it needs to be referenced. She stated that it does not need anything more by law than a bicycle. I know that does not give the context because as others have intimated much regulation will be added here. It is right that our committee is having this more in-depth committee today. I firmly believe that e-scooters will be a positive force in our lives. I love to think that teenagers in particular will be able to travel to events in their lives, including going to friend's houses, the cinema or hurling training and that they can do so independently and safely away from the taxi of mum and dad. While it will be very positive, it needs much more regulation than the pedal bike does.

The entry-level e-scooter that I have been looking at can do an average speed of 24 km/h. New models are constantly coming on the market. One of them is called the RION RE90 hyper scooter. It has a top speed of 120 km/h.

Imagine that. That is the speed cars on the motorway from Limerick to Dublin were doing this morning. Can you imagine someone on an e-scooter keeping up with your speed or possibly passing you out on a motorway? That probably is not even realistic. That may not happen, but we have deal with a spectrum of stuff here. If e-scooters are getting faster, and they are, we need to grasp that in the very beginning and ensure that they are not on the same space as pedestrians and people who have an array of disabilities. We have to keep pedestrians and those who use e-scooters apart and we need to keep both groups safe.

I have met with the NCBI. I had a Zoom meeting with them before Christmas and I have listened to many people on this. I am fully committed. I do not have too many questions because I am fully committed for the argument we are hearing today. I am convinced there should be a sound-emitting device so that we know when one of these vehicles is approaching. The thing with electric cars is that they creep up on you quite silently. It is the same with e-scooters.

There are a few questions I would like to ask. My colleague Deputy Lahart, who is a Deputy here in Dublin, has suggested many times over that there should be some form of geofencing, particularly with the public realm e-scooters. We had a lot of larger groups on to us saying that they want to bring e-scooters into Ireland's towns and cities, but that, in itself, will create various problems. In a city such as Dublin, where we are today, on Grafton Street, for example, you would want some way of predicting those on e-scooters coming along that pedestrian street and integrating with pedestrians. That is my first question, in particular, for Mr. Fulham. Does he believe that there is a role for some form of geofencing to ensure that e-scooters, particularly public realm e-scooters, stay out of certain spaces?