Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 9, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following:

“Amendment of section 3 of Act of 1961 13. Section 3(1) of the Act of 1961 is amended by the insertion of the following definition:

“ ‘powered personal transporter’ means a vehicle—

(a) designed and constructed for the carriage of a single person, but not designed or constructed for a person with restricted mobility or for the carriage of goods,

(b) with a maximum weight unladen of 25 kilograms,

(c) with a maximum design speed of no less than 6 kilometres per hour and no greater than 25 kilometres per hour, and

(d) equipped with an electric motor having a maximum continuous rated power, or electric motors having a combined maximum continuous rated power, of less than or equal to 0.5 kilowatts, but not including a vehicle referred to in paragraph (b) of the definition of pedal bicycle or in paragraph (b) of the definition of pedal tricycle;”.”.

One of the most important elements of last year's Road Traffic and Roads Act is the creation of a new class of vehicles to be called powered personal transporters, PPTs. This class will include electric scooters but also has the potential to include other forms of micromobility in the future. The PPT provisions of the 2023 Act have yet to be commenced and we hope to bring them into effect in May, along with regulations for the construction equipment and use of e-scooters. The definition of a PPT contained in the 2023 Act relies on three parameters, which are maximum unladen weight, maximum design speed and maximum continuous rate of power. These are parameters for PPTs as a class. It was also made clear that particular types of PPT within this class might have more restricted limits. For this reason, the 2023 Act added a new power for the Minister to prescribe different values for each of these parameters for particular classes of PPTs. This was intended to allow, for example, that regulations might state that a particular type of vehicle that came within the scope of the definition of a PPT must nonetheless have a lower weight.

It has since been brought to the Department's attention that the wording of this regulation-making power, allowing for different values for each parameter, could in principle allow a Minister to set higher values than those in the Act. That would mean allowing a Minister to bring vehicles into the scope of the definition of PPTs which were not made PPTs by the Oireachtas, which, by extension, would mean that the Minister would bring the vehicles within the scope of offences for these, again without the Oireachtas having decided this. It was never the intention to set higher values than those in the Act. However, the fact that these provisions allow for that is, in itself, problematic.

As it happens, section 11 of the Road Traffic Act 1961 provides powers under which values can be set for vehicles, by definition now including PPTs for design and continuous rate of power. These powers are available to use if needed to set values for particular types of PPT which are lower than those in the Act. The only parameter which cannot be set at a lower level than that in the Act by means of pre-existing legal powers is weight. At present, we have no intention of setting lower weights for any class of PPTs. We, therefore, propose to remove the ministerial power to set different values to those in the definition of PPT and to remove and restate the definition of PPT without the reference currently there to the powers that we are removing.

The result will be that the definition of a PPT will be as agreed and legislated for by the Oireachtas last year but that it will no longer be a power, which might theoretically be used by the Minister to set higher values and thereby turn something which was not a PPT, according to the intention of the Oireachtas, into a PPT.