A new report from the College of Physicians has found that e-scooters are the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries to children at Temple Street Hospital.
The college is calling on the Government to tighten restrictions on the use of e-scooters.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the author of the report, Dr Irwin Gill, said that despite children aged under 16 not being allowed to use e-scooters on public roads, there was a high number of injuries to children as a result of their use.
"E-scooters are now the leading cause of traumatic brain injury in children admitted to the National Neurosurgical Centre at Temple Street prior to May 2024, which is at the point when legislation came into effect," he said.
"We had seen one child admitted with a traumatic brain injury, and in the 18 months since, we've seen 25 and counting, coming in with serious, serious injuries.
"Many of the families of these children have told us that they were not aware of the existence of the legal age limit."
Dr Gill said that all 26 children injured were riding the scooters at the time their injuries were sustained.
"All of them were riding the scooters and generally speaking, were riding them and fell off without there being any other vehicles involved," he said.
"Children are losing control, hitting curves or potholes, or just falling off, going at speed and sustaining serious injuries as a result."
He added that only one child had been wearing a helmet at the time of their accident.
"It's important to say that helmets would help and would have prevented some of these injuries, as they would for any injury from a bicycle or a motorbike," he said.
"But they would not have prevented all of these injuries and better helmet wearing wouldn't completely fix this problem," Dr Gill added.
Dr Gill said that emergency departments were also seeing an increase in e-scooter-related injuries to children, and that some of the injuries consisted of fractured skulls and bleeding or bruising to the brain.
"My colleagues in the emergency department have seen a massive increase in children being brought to the emergency department with e-scooter injuries," he said.
"We're on track for approximately 400 attendances across CHI emergency departments this year. That's more than one every day and that includes broken bones of other sorts, lacerations and other serious injuries.
"The ones who were admitted to hospital with traumatic brain injuries are spending almost 19 days in hospital.
"These are not injuries that children are just bouncing straight back from and leaving quickly. They're serious injuries requiring an awful lot of health care," he said.
Dr Gill said that the brain injuries suffered by the children were leading to longer-term side effects.
"We're starting to see children come back to clinic where their parents and teachers are saying they’re really struggling to stay awake through school, or is having desperate headaches later in the day or is getting angry and snapping at things that they wouldn't have done before," he said.
"Those are all well-acknowledged consequences of traumatic brain injury that can play out over time, but because this is such a recent problem with such a worrying, alarming rate of increase, how many children we're seeing, time will tell how much of a problem this is going to cause, but we're very, very concerned," he added.
Dr Gill said that the college is calling for more vigilance from parents and a stricter enforcement of restrictions.
"What we're calling for is for parents to be aware that it is illegal for children under 16 to use any scooter on a public road," he said.
"We're calling for enforcement of the existing rules as they are, which seems to be that they exist in principle, but they're not keeping children safe and safe in practice.
"We're also calling on Government to consider whether or not the rules we currently have are sufficient and need to be reconsidered," Dr Gill said.
Speaking on the same programme, Assistant Commissioner for Roads Policing Catharina Gunne said under-16s are prohibited from using e-scooters.
"They're also prohibited from having a passenger on an e-scooter. So, An Garda Síochána has dynamometers, which check the speed of e-scooters.
"We have one across every region. We have also legislation since they came into effect in May 2024.
"And to date, we've issued 837 tickets, fixed charge notices.
"We would appeal to any parent giving an e-scooter or anyone with an e-scooter that they're permitted on public roads, cycle lanes and bus lanes," but they are not permitted on footpaths or pedestrianised areas, she said.
