There have been 16 collisions involving e-scooters which resulted in either a fatality or serious injury since the beginning of the year, according to new figures from An Garda Síochána.
The figures, released to RTÉ's News at One, also show that gardaí have seized 36 e-scooters over road traffic offences since January
According to the data from the Garda's PULSE system, there were 74 road traffic collisions involving e-scooters from 1 January to 11 June.
Sixteen of those collisions were described as ones involving a fatality or serious injury, which is an average of nearly three such collisions a month.
The figures show that the other 58 collisions were described as being non-serious injury collisions.
E-scooters currently cannot be used on public roads and footpaths in Ireland without insurance and motor tax as they are categorised as mechanically propelled vehicles.
Currently it is not possible to get motor tax for them, so according to the Road Traffic Act they cannot therefore be used on public roads and footpaths.
The new Roads Traffic Bill will be back in the Dáil this evening. Once passed regulations will then be introduced at a later stage which will legalise the use of e-scooters on the roads.
However, the Department of Transport has said that the legislation could mean that e-scooters which can travel 25km/h will not be made legal on Irish roads.
If TDs approve the bill it will be sent to President Michael D Higgins later this week to be signed into law, which would mean that provisions allowing the legal use of e-scooters on public roads could be enacted within the next few months.
Earlier this week, AA Ireland called for tighter regulation on the use of e-scooters on our roads.
This followed social media footage posted at the weekend, which appeared to show an e-scooter user travelling along the M50 in Dublin and weaving in and out of traffic.
AA Ireland spokesperson Paddy Comyn said the figures were "worrying and we know that we're on the cusp of seeing way more e-scooters on Irish roads and streets and the result of that is likely to be increased numbers of these incidents. These scooters behave differently to regular bicycles."
AA Ireland has also called on legislators to make it mandatory for all e-scooters to be registered, so that they can easily be identified and proper enforcement of the rules can be ensured.
However, it remains to be seen whether such a provision will be adopted in the future.
