Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is a technology that we are not very used to or familiar with. We are right to be cautious as we introduce it. Over time we will hopefully discover that it is going to bed in relatively well and we will ask why we did not have people on these scooters years ago because they are removing SUVs from a lot of places and helping with parking and visibility. When going past many schools now there are so many SUVs outside that it is very hard to see pedestrians coming out between the cars, let alone trying to negotiate a potential scooter as well.

Do Ms Kennedy or Ms Murphy have any particular take on the speed limit? If there were two or three measures they wanted over everything else, what would those be? I presume the footpath issue would be number one. I ask them to rank the things they would like to see in descending order. I totally get that the thing they want most is for scooters not to be allowed on footpaths. They are almost silent and can sneak up behind people very easily, even on ordinary pedestrians who do not have any issues with mobility, sight or visual impairment. They can be quite scary if they appear behind you. I cycle sometimes and when a scooter comes up in the cycle lane I do not hear it until it is past me. I totally get that. Do any of the witnesses have a hierarchy of provisions that they really want to bed into the legislation, like A over B or B over C?