Mandatory helmet use on e-scooters being considered
Consideration is being given to making helmets compulsory for e-scooter users.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has previously said he is determined to strengthen regulations and improve enforcement around rules on speed and underage use of e-scooters, with the Taoiseach set to meet with the Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien early this year to discuss tightening regulations.
It comes amid a rise in the number of serious injuries sustained by children using e-scooters in the last five years, according to a consultant general paediatrician at Temple Street Hospital in Dublin.
E-scooter incidents are now the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries in children admitted to the paediatric neurosurgical centre at Temple Street Hospital, according to a paper published by the Royal College of Physicians.
Consultant General Paediatrician Dr Emer Ryan said there was a fourfold increase in e-scooter related injuries across Children's Health Ireland (CHI) emergency departments from 2021 to 2025.
"There were 500 presentations to the emergency departments across CHI ... that's 500 injuries of fractures, shoulder injuries," she said.
"I imagine if there's 500 that have presented, there are many, many more who have more minor injuries and milder traumatic brain injuries that are not showing up, that are going around with injuries from this."
Dr Ryan said the message should be that children should not be on e-scooters in the first place, instead of making wearing helmets mandatory.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Dr Ryan said: "I think that distracts from our message, which is that children should not be on e-scooters.
"We know that wearing a helmet in bicycle injuries does reduce your traumatic brain injury chances probably by 50% ... but our position would be that helmets are not the solution for children.
"(It is) that children should not be at all riding on these e-scooters."
Dr Ryan said that they were seeing more children present with injuries from e-scooter accidents than car accidents, bike accidents and falls.
"These children were admitted under neurosurgery because they had a bleed in the brain, a fracture of their skull, or swelling of their brain that required removal of their skull to allow it to heal," she said.
"The injuries that they're seeing, in terms of brain injuries from e-scooters, are more than they're seeing from children in car accidents or children in bicycle accidents or falls or any other cause."
Dr Ryan said the Faculty of Paediatrics felt they had to publish their position statement on e-scooters as "week in, week out, we were seeing children come in with these injuries, life changing injuries".
Dr Ryan said it was very difficult for gardaí to implement the current legislation that children under the age of 16 should not be on e-scooters.
"If a garda is to try and stop them, there might be a chase... they'll lead to an accident. If they arrest them, they're underage. It's very difficult to implement the legislation against the child," she said.
She offered the possible solution that an e-scooter should be registered and belong to an adult and that the owner of that e-scooter is responsible for the child that uses it.
Dr Ryan encouraged adults to take more responsibility for their children who may be using e-scooters.
"Adults are the people who are supposed to be on these e-scooters, and children copy what adults do.
"If adults are supposed to wear helmets, younger 16 year olds or 15 year olds are ones that will copy the adults and wear a helmet," she said.
"We would hope that younger children aren't on these e-scooters, but at least if it's the norm to wear a helmet on a scooter, they're more likely to wear one."
