On Monday afternoon, a teenage girl was one of dozens to lay flowers at a set of traffic lights on Ratoath Road in Finglas, west Dublin.
Carrying a set of pale pink balloons, which she subsequently tied to a pole, the girl’s eyes welled as she explained that she went to school with Grace Lynch, a 16-year-old who died after being struck by a scrambler bike 24 hours prior.
Locals laying flowers on Monday at the site of the crash described these bikes frequently “flying up the road”, breaking lights, “pulling wheelies”, driving on footpaths and cutting through parks and estates at speed.
One 22-year-old who wished to remain anonymous said each Christmas Day, “the first thing you hear is all the new scramblers”.
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“They’re genuinely too dangerous. There’s been so many close calls with people, and now, because of them, there’s a 16-year-old that’s dead and who doesn’t get to go home,” she says.
Visiting the site of the crash on Monday, Danielle McLoughlin, who lives locally, said the prevalence of scramblers in the area is “scary”.
Several locals also described young scrambler drivers “playing chicken” with cars, swerving in and out of lanes and driving towards oncoming traffic.
“They’ve no fear,” Ms McLoughlin said.
“It’s absolutely horrendous. I can’t get her out of my head,” she says on the death of Ms Lynch, adding: “It’s really after affecting me. She was 16, she had her whole life ahead of her.”
Karen Rath, who walked from her nearby home to lay flowers, said parents in the area have been raising the issue with TDs and councillors for years.
She does not allow her 11-year-old son to cross at the traffic lights where Ms Lynch was struck, due to the speed of both cars and scramblers, who frequently ignore red lights, she says.
“I’m really upset because it’s our children and nobody is listening to us.”
Local People Before Profit councillor Conor Reddy said there was a “strong sense of inevitability” locally on Monday, describing scrambler bikes as a “constant threat” to both drivers and pedestrians.
“This particular part of Finglas that the incident happened in, it’s every day nearly that you see people on scramblers weaving in and out of traffic, mounting footpaths, up on one wheel, with just no regard for people’s safety whatsoever,” he says.
A Garda spokesman said gardaí continue to adopt a “proactive approach” in addressing the illegal use of scramblers, quads, e-bikes and e-scooters.
He said this effort has been “significantly bolstered” by the enactment of the Road Traffic and Roads Act 2023, which gave gardaí greater seizure powers.
The spokesman said there has been a “consistent increase” in seizures of such vehicles in recent years, noting that up to October 30th last year, 449 such vehicles were seized in the Dublin metropolitan region.
This compares with 128 seizures in 2024 and 67 in 2023.
While greater seizure powers have been given to gardaí, Mr Reddy says there has been “no real evidence on the ground of an improvement”.
“The problem is that they’re replaced almost immediately,” he says.
Geoff Keating, who has been independently advocating for increased youth services locally to combat antisocial behaviour, believes there should be an outright ban on scramblers, or “severe fines” for parents of scrambler users under 16.
Noting that they can cause “significant safety risks, especially for children”, a spokesman for the Road Safety Authority said scramblers should be used only in “controlled environments”.
“The law requires individuals to be at least 16 years old to legally use scramblers on public roads,” he said.
However, Mr Keating says children as young as 11 are being gifted the bikes.
“We have no control over these bikes,” he says.“There’s not a day that goes by in Finglas where somebody isn’t going to pass on a scrambler, on the back wheel or flying up and down the road.”
Believing the bikes, alongside escooters, are often linked to “serious” crime in the area, he says “They’re so hard for guards to stop, they’re hard to chase, and they can get into areas where squad cars can’t.”
A Garda spokesman said the pursuit of offending vehicles is “approached with caution”, taking into account a range of factors including environmental conditions, the nature of the offence and the overarching priority of public and Garda safety.
“While public discourse has raised concerns about the reluctance of gardaí to engage in pursuits due to legal and safety risks, the DMR [Dublin metropolitan region] remains committed to arresting those involved in the illegal use of scramblers and similar vehicles,” he said.
Local Fianna Fáil councillor Keith Connolly maintained he has seen “no evidence” of gardaí pursuing those engaging in antisocial behaviour on the bikes.
“These seem to be above the law,” he says, adding that while a fatality linked to a scrambler is “absolutely heart breaking”, it is “not surprising”.
Mr Keating says the issue is prevalent in areas “starved” of youth services and “left to their own devices”, such as Finglas, Ballymun, Tallaght, and Clondalkin.
He says Finglas has been “let down for years”, with “absolutely nothing for young children to do”.
“When you deprive children of services and ways to fulfil their potential, what do you expect is going to happen?”
“It wouldn’t happen anywhere else. If this happened in a more affluent area, there would be a whole range of things brought into play.”
