New powers to curb use of quad bikes

NEW POWERS to curb the use of quad bikes and jet-skis have been announced by Minister for the Environment John Gormley.

Mr Gormley said yesterday that he would introduce new regulations under European legislation to limit recreational activities in places where protected species might be disturbed.

He said the regulations were being introduced because of incidents where serious damage and disturbance was caused to nature sites and wildlife by activities such as quad biking, scrambling and jet-skiing.

In 2007, the European Court found that Ireland had not dealt with the problem of the damage being caused by such unrestricted recreational activities. “The Government will be liable to face substantial fines from the European Court unless it deals properly with this problem,” he said.

The types of damage include the destruction of upland vegetation leading to erosion; the disturbance of ground-nesting birds and destruction of their nests; the swamping of the nests of water birds by power boats and jet-skis, and damage to sand dune systems leading to blow-outs and loss of dunes.