'Sheer danger, please just don't': Health Minister makes plea to parents regarding e-scooters
Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has urged parents to stop allowing children to use e-scooters
The Health Minister has made a plea to parents regarding e-scooters following a number of serious injuries and a death in recent days.
Jennifer Carroll MacNeill was speaking on The Claire Byrne Show when she asked parents to stop allowing their children to use e-scooters.
“It's illegal, obviously, for children to be on e-scooters. The reason for that, of course, is the sheer danger that they pose to a child,” she said.
She highlighted that she is not trying to scaremonger, but that children appear to be unaware of the dangers associated with e-scooters.
During one recent fortnight, six children have been put on life support in Temple Street because of accidents associated with the vehicles.
On top of that, one teenager died in Carlow after falling from an e-scooter.
“An acquired brain injury has life limiting implications. Potentially the ability to feed oneself, the ability to walk, talk, to have a normal life - it is so potentially severely compromised.... To put a child at risk of that scale of injury is very significant,” Minister MacNeill said.
She added that her fellow ministers are also concerned, and they have been working together to collate data on the e-scooter issue.
“I've spoken to my colleagues in the Department of Transport, Seán Canney, Minister for Road Safety, is very, very concerned about this,” she said.
Since 2024, no one under the age of 16 can use an e-scooter and all users must obey a 20km/ph speed limit.
Minister MacNeill highlighted how as much as Gardaí do have an important role to play in enforcing restrictions, its also “for all of us, as parents” to stop children from using e-scooters.
“If even that message could get through today, that somebody making a decision to buy one or to let a child use it - please just don't,” she concluded.