RYAN UNDER FIRE OVER DELAYS TO E-SCOOTER LAWS
GREEN leader and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has come under fire over delays to new laws that will give escooters the green light.
The Government previously indicated that the legality around escooters would be finalised this year. But in its National
Sustainable Mobility Policy last month, the Coalition admitted it would be 2023 before they can legally operate on our roads – even though e-scooters are already widely used here.
In response to queries, the Department of Transport said, ‘The Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021 is currently before the Houses of the Oireachtas and is expected to complete all stages in the coming months.’
An Irish company waiting to launch shared e-scooters questioned the hold-up, especially in light of the Government’s carbon targets and spiralling fuel costs.
Will O’Brien of Zipp Mobility told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We haven’t heard anything from the Department [of Transport] as to why it’s taking longer, and they haven’t sought our opinions on anything as well.
‘We’re doing so much on the subject of climate action and we’re doing things with a lot of urgency. We don’t see any reason why that urgency shouldn’t be applied to sustainable transport, especially when you have people across Ireland struggling more and more with the cost of diesel and petrol.’
Zipp is one of several shared e-scooter companies making plans to operate here as soon as they can do so legally.
More than 50 cities around Europe already have shared schemes in place, where users can find and unlock an escooter on an app, and leave it somewhere else at the end of their ride.
‘We’ve seen how beneficial they can be in other cities in Europe and we’re so keen to see them on the streets of Dublin,’ said Mr O’Brien.
‘We want to make Dublin the best e-scooter city in the world. We might be late to the game, but let’s cherry-pick best practices from all the other cities.’
Already operating e-bikes here, the company plans to bring e-scooters to all of Ireland’s cities and some of its larger towns.
Mr O’Brien said there is scope for operating in smaller towns too – and stressed safety is a priority for users and non-users of e-scooters.
‘The last thing we want is people tripping over these scooters or anything like that,’ he added.