Legislation will give gardai powers to seize scramblers

NEW legislation to be introduced in June via a Criminal Justice Bill, will give gardai greater powers to seize quad bikes and scramblers in public parks and green spaces.

While the legislation is welcome, it will “not end” the danger of bikes on public spaces, and it will need all stakeholders working together to “build and scale up”, according to TD John Lahart (FF).

Speaking at the policing meeting this week, Deputy Lahart said he was firmly in favour of the “carrot and stick approach”.

“The stick is this legislation, that will be passed by June and will give gardai the powers of confiscation, but we know that that is not going to end it,” he said.

“When I was in opposition, I received a letter from the Dublin county coroner, who knew we were piloting legislation through the house to try and give the gardai the powers that they needed in relation to scramblers.

“[She was] just alerting me to the fact that two or three deaths that the coroner had dealt with had been as a result of incidents involving scramblers. She wanted to express her concern around that.”

A presentation at the JPC meeting by Andrew O’Byrne, from Moyross Motorcross Club in Limerick, outlined much of the work that has gone on with their programme, that tries to engage youths.

Mr O’Byrne said their programme was a “long and arduous process” in what is a “contentious issue”, but it was initiated “because what we were doing wasn’t working”.

He said a key aspect in engaging young people is “what we have on offer has to be attractive to them, than what they are doing”.

The Moyross programme offers members education on bike maintenance, training, team building, and the potential for competing at club level across the country.

Deputy Lahart (FF) was “excited by this presentation” but the “only question” now was how to progress this to the next stage.