Almost 90 vehicles, including 75 e-bikes and e-scooters, have been seized by gardaí across Dublin as part of a “high-impact day of action” to tackle illegal use of the vehicles.
Officers carried out 74 searches across the Dublin region as part of Operation Meacán on Tuesday, resulting in five individuals being arrested.
Alongside the e-bikes and e-scooters, gardaí seized seven Surron bikes, four scrambler motorcycles and three quad vehicles.
Some €8,000 in cash, suspected drugs believed to be valued in excess of €100,000 and a sawn-off shotgun with ammunition were also seized.
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A man in his 20s was arrested in connection with the firearm seizure and is being held under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act at a Dublin Garda station.
A second male was arrested on foot of a bench warrant, while three other men were arrested and are currently detained for drug-related offences.
Det Supt Jason Miley said more than 100 gardaí were involved in the west Dublin operation and another 200 were likewise engaged in the city centre.
He said tackling e-scooter usage can be “challenging” but added there is an “organisational focus on ensuring that we do as much as we can with the legislation that we have”.
Supt Liam Geraghty said there was an opportunity for those who use e-scooters to “get themselves road-ready and road-legal”.
On a daily basis, there are e-scooters being seized across the city and countrywide where necessary.
He said a “major step forward” in tackling illegal e-scooter use is the number of retailers that have removed the sale of e-scooters marketed towards children or that break the 20km/h limit.
A Garda source said e-scooter searches are being conducted alongside drug searches, based on intelligence aimed at identifying individuals involved in criminal activity.
Gardaí at checkpoints will use portable dynamometers to measure the locked and unlocked speed of an e-scooter to check its legality.
Hi-viz jackets and helmets are now mandatory under new e-scooter regulations that came into effect at the beginning of August. The new laws also extended the ban from under-16s to under-18s. From September, every e-scooter user in the Republic will require a licence and registration.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly last month told an Oireachtas committee that he agreed with calls for a ban on e-scooters, saying society would be “better off” without them. Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he was “leaning towards” introducing a total ban on the machines after a series of incidents involving young people resulted in deaths and serious injuries.
Operation Meacán, which began in December 2023 in the Dublin Metropolitan Region, targets the use of electric motorbikes, e-scooters and e-bikes for criminal activity including drug distribution, money laundering, transporting firearms, drug-related intimidation and other serious offences.
