E-scooters will be subject to strict regulation if the Government does not ban them, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has said. Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for State for Road Safety Seán Canney have recently said they were leaning towards a blanket ban because of the prevalence of serious head injuries among young people.However, speaking on Friday, O’Callaghan was more circumspect. Pointing to a meeting of senior Ministers on the issue this Monday, he said he would not pre-empt the discussion. “There’s obviously a balancing act that needs to be weighed up here,” he said. “On the one hand, there is the threat that’s caused to the public from the proliferation of e-scooters. I have to say, however, the Garda here is doing a good job in seizing not just e-scooters but scramblers since the start of this year.”He said that there had been 1,200 seizures in 2026. No matter what laws were in place, or what level of enforcement imposed, he continued, there would always be examples of people breaking the law. He said the Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) report which showed a high number of serious head injuries in children who had e-scooter crashes was “really worrying”.“We need a broad response to this,” he said. “Certainly, if they’re not going to be banned, they need to be regulated. We need to ensure that that happens.”The CHI report found the number of children and young people admitted to hospital with traumatic brain injuries following e-scooter incidents has increased by 50 per cent year on year.There were 1,130 attendances to emergency departments at CHI between January 2021 and last August due to e-scooter-related injuries. A dozen children were treated by Temple Street’s neurosurgery team with traumatic brain injuries between June 2024 and May 2025.In the Dáil on Thursday, Tánaiste Simon Harris said the situation was now “at a tipping point where we need to move and move quickly”. He is to meet senior Ministers to discuss options including a potential ban.