THE TEENAGE GIRL who was killed after she was struck by a scrambler in Finglas yesterday has been named locally. 

Grace Lynch was walking along the Ratoath Road in Finglas at around 2.20pm when she was hit.

She was taken to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown to be treated for serious injuries, but died yesterday evening. 

Gardaí have arrested a man in his late teens in connection with the crash. He is being held at a garda station in the Dublin region.

A garda spokesperson had earlier said that two teenagers had been travelling on the scrambler and were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

In a post on social media, Fianna Fáil TD Paul McAuliffe said the community is “devastated” following the tragic incident. 

“I’ve no doubt our whole community will support them and Grace’s friends over the coming days. That’s what we do in Finglas,” he said. 

Fianna Fáil councillor for Ballymun-Finglas Keith Connolly has said there is “heartbreak” in the community following Grace’s death. 

“We had a young girl on the way to meet her boyfriend on a Sunday afternoon who was so tragically killed by a scrambler,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, offering condolences to her family and friends. 

Connolly said scrambler bikes are an issue in the area and have been raised at every single safety forum he has attended for the last number of years, but that it is clear that not enough is being done to tackle the problem. 

He said that changes in the law last year that allows gardaí to seize and detain quad and scrambler bikes from a property without a warrant if they believe they are being used in an anti-social way “is not enough”. 

“There’s great frustration around the pursuit of these vehicles,” he said, adding that there was “a level of lawlessness about these bikes being used in certain areas”. 

In January last year, then-commissioner Drew Harris announced a policy change allowing Gardaí to pursue people found to be driving scramblers, scooters and electric bikes dangerously. 

But Connolly said he has seen “no evidence” of this happening in the Finglas area, adding that more needs to happen. 

“You cannot have a bike going up and down a road pulling wheelies, or, in the case of yesterday’s tragedy, killing a young girl on the way to meet her boyfriend. It’s unacceptable. And that level of lawlessness has to be dealt with.”

‘Especially tragic’

People Before Profit councillor for the area Conor Reddy told The Journal that Finglas is “deeply shaken” by the incident. 

“I’ve spoken to quite a few people and they’re devastated,” he said. “Obviously any death on the roads like this is tragic, but when it’s such a young person, it’s especially tragic.”

Reddy said a lot of people in the area have felt “like something like this would happen for a very long time”.

“It’s almost every day that you see scramblers, sometimes up on one wheel, weaving in and out of traffic, travelling at great speeds. There have been accidents in the past, but I think this particular tragedy is something that we all felt was coming.”

According to Reddy, a “multi-pronged” approach is needed to tackle the problem. He said that while Gardaí regularly seize bikes in the area, they are soon replaced. 

He suggested restricting the sale and supply of scrambler bikes in the first instance, as well as possibly restricting their use to off-road tracks only and holding parents or guardians to account when juveniles are found to be using scramblers unlawfully.

Reddy also said that more resources are needed to tackle the wider issue of young people and criminality, adding that youth services are mostly operating on “a shoe-string budget” with the most at risk young people often not engaging. 

“It’s great to have the youth centres that we have in Finglas, but I think what we need to see is assertive outreach youth work where youth workers go on the streets, where they develop relationships and trust with young people who are engaged in dangerous behaviors and try to break that down.”

Reddy continued: “We can’t allow this to happen again.

“So many people live in fear every day, and I think this has to be a turning point in Finglas.”