Ms Aisling Dunne:

It is the same for bikes. We are trying to put in place the best, safest and most affordable service, thereby, as one of my colleagues said, motivating people away from private ownership where there are fewer controls and there is less potential for regulation. It has allowed them to see that renting a scooter to get them to the DART station or the bus allows them to leave the scooter and not have to lug it with them and bring it in and out to work. That provides a level of convenience that private ownership does not allow. We need to get to the stage where the shared scheme is affordable, easy, sustainable and well regulated.

On the question of helmets and high-visibility jackets, I agree with some of my colleagues. We do not believe making helmets mandatory in this case is the way to go, just as they are not mandatory for cycling. However, we operate with free helmets for our users. In the weeks when we launch in a new city, we tend to run engagement and educational events, teaching people how to use the scooters and providing them with free helmets. We work with the councils to structure that accordingly. The same goes for high-visibility jackets.