The motorbike had no registration plate and the youth riding it had no helmet. He was driving dangerously in Dublin city centre. He was not the first to do so that day and he was not the last.
“It’s like a scene from Mad Max, sometimes,” said Social Democrats councillor Daniel Ennis about what is becoming a significant problem.
It was a damp Monday afternoon last week. The youth on the motorbike looked to be a teenager, though it was hard to be sure because his face was covered. Despite pedestrians and city traffic, he was turning the Dublin north inner city area around Summerhill and Gardiner Street into his own rally track.
Prime Time was filming covertly to try to establish the extent of a motorcycle joyriding. Soon after we turned on our concealed cameras, we captured him lifting the front wheel to do a 30m wheelie before zooming up Summerhill.
Minutes later, he was back. This time, he was on the wrong side of the road heading up Gardiner Street, driving through a red light as a woman pushing a baby in a buggy was crossing. He then made an illegal right turn and did another wheelie up into Summerhill.
Over the next almost three hours, including a period when primary school children were returning home, the youth did wheelie after wheelie – repeated dangerous driving. On three occasions, we filmed him driving his motorcycle along the footpath, one time doing a wheelie.
Despite the length of time spent rallying around an area within a ten-minute walk from three garda stations, we did not witness any garda intervention or monitoring.
Motorcycle joyriding is not a new problem, and is not exclusive to the north inner city, but locals say it has surged in recent years.
During an afternoon of filming our cameras also captured another motorcyclist carrying a pillion passenger with no helmet, breaking a red light and driving through oncoming vehicles before heading down Parnell Street.
“It all leads to a sheer sense of lawlessness in the city,” said Cllr Ennis, a former League of Ireland soccer player, who says his constituents raise the issue with him “constantly.”
Later in the week, Prime Time was speaking with people on nearby Seán McDermott Street. Its width and relative lack of traffic make it a favourite for motorcycle joyriders.
“We don’t like it,” said local man, Patrick Meade, referring to the young people doing wheelies. “Too dangerous,” he says, “for old people walking by.”
“It’s not going to stop until someone get killed,” said another local resident, Tracy Smith. “The police can’t do anything about it.”
The behaviour is certainly a conundrum for An Garda Síochána, who did not accept an invitation to do an interview.
The issue creates a significant policing difficulty. In England and Wales some officers are trained in so-called ‘tactical contact,’ to knock suspected criminals off motorcycles. Here, gardaí are reluctant to do so – especially where the motorcyclist or passenger is not wearing a helmet – for fear that they will be injured.
Gardaí have begun exercising relatively new powers to seize vehicles from sheds or the area around a residence without a warrant. On Tuesday, gardaí conducted a “Day of Action” in the north inner city during which they confiscated a motorbike and 6 high-powered electric motorbikes believed to be used for criminal activity.
However, once the suspected thieves are on bikes, it seems they are effectively beyond the reach of the law.
Robert Hammond, who works on Seán McDermott Street, described the joyriding as a “regular occurrence.”
As he spoke to Prime Time, a motorcycle roared up the street overtaking a car while doing a wheelie. There were two youths on the bike, neither wearing a helmet and both with their faces covered. They spotted our camera and the driver gestured to us with his middle finger.
Mr Hammond suggested that providing a track where youngsters can rally away from traffic might help to take the problem off the surrounding streets. There is, in fact a track in nearby Clontarf – the Dublin City Motocross Club – but it is volunteer-led, funding is limited, restricting its capacity to open regularly.
Last year, just yards away from where we were speaking, a joyrider doing a wheelie on Seán McDermott Street hit a car. The bike went on fire, destroying a parked van and a taxi. The motorcyclist was injured, but left the scene before gardaí arrived.
The accident happened just 20 metres from the entrance to Rutland National School “five minutes after the infants had left,” Principal Niamh Murray told Prime Time.
“It was fortunate no one was crossing the road at the time,” she said, “when you have small children and parents crossing, there is always a risk of something happening.”
She says the joyriding problem is recurring. “Usually it’s sporadic; it might be an hour, then nothing for two or three weeks, and then an hour three days in a row,” she said.
“One day in the middle of October it was all day – motorbikes zooming up and down Seán McDermott Street, which was massively disruptive to the children’s learning.”
She has raised the issue of youths on motorcycles speeding and doing wheelies by her school with the North East Inner City (NEIC) group’s Enhanced Policing committee, asking for traffic-calming measures or checkpoints on the street.
Cllr Ennis has also raised the so-called “scrambler scourge” with Dublin City Council.
The joyriders have “no fear” he says. He remembers one Saturday afternoon in August when there was a community event on and “for 35 minutes straight, there were two scramblers racing each other up Seán McDermott Street.”
“It’s a residential area. It’s five minutes from O’Connell Street, and you must remember Seán McDermott Street is a stone’s throw from Store Street police station,” he said.
“But there was no garda presence, so why would [the joyriders] have fear of the guards?” he asks.
While there is no suggestion that any of the motorcycles filmed by Prime Time are stolen, in general the joyriding problem is clearly connected to a surge in motorcycle theft, especially in Dublin.
Bike theft
Motorcycle theft is mainly a Dublin problem. In recent years, four out of every five stolen motorbikes nationwide have been taken in the capital.
Figures supplied by An Garda Síochána to Prime Time show that over the last decade the number of motorcycles stolen annually in Dublin typically hovered around the 300-400 mark – in 2023, 787 motorbikes were taken in Dublin.
That’s more than double the previous year (+105%) and over treble the 2015 figure (+215%).
To put that in context, only 1,770 new and second-hand motorcycles were registered in Dublin last year. So, for every hundred motorbikes registered in the capital in 2023, 44 were stolen in the city.
Niall Stephens, owner of major Dublin retailer, Bikeworld, described the scale of the thefts as an “epidemic”. In 30 years in business, he says he has “never seen the likes of it.”
Mr Stephens explained that thieves “break the ignition off and they can use screwdrivers or various other implements that turn [the ignition] or they can pull the wires out.”
There are also devices available online which thieves use to “get around some of the immobilisers,” he said.
Hammers are used to break disc locks, cordless angle grinders are used to break chain locks, and – with many thefts occurring in broad daylight on busy streets – the same tools are sometimes used to threaten passersby who try to intervene to stop a theft.
Many of the thieves appear to be young teenagers, working in small groups of four to six.
Their crimes can have a significant impact on lives and livelihoods.
Last month, Léonie Beving had her motorbike stolen from the car park while she was working a night shift in Dublin Airport.
“I had like lots of chains on it, disc lock, I really thought it was protected. There’s also security there all night, so I thought it was going to be OK,” she said.
The following day, her sister, Gaia, wrote on Facebook. “My little sister’s 08 ninja 250 was stolen this morning at 4am from Dublin airport, they cut the chain and disk lock and took off on it while she was in work. Security guys said it took them less than a minute to take it. If anyone sees it or sees an ad posted on Facebook or DoneDeal pls let me know, she’s heartbroken.”
Once that post was circulated on biker Facebook pages which are specifically dedicated to helping people recover their vehicles, Gaia began to receive photos and videos of the motorcycle as it was being driven around Dublin by youths who weren’t wearing helmets.
One of the photos showed Léonie’s stolen motorcycle being driven through Dublin’s Phibsborough, with the pillion passenger carrying a large pair of boltcutters.
It wasn’t just those trying to help Léonie and Gaia who were posting pictures of the motorbike on social media, those riding the stolen Ninja 250 were also putting up TikTok videos of themselves (set to grime music soundtracks).
Underneath one of the TikTok posts, one person commented that it was the “most wanted” motorbike in the capital.
“They’re all wearing balaclavas and they put their little rap music underneath it,” Gaia said, “and they’re throwing up their little gang [hand] signs.”
On the TikTok page where Léonie’s bike was posted, there was multiple videos of stolen motorbikes.
In our brief investigation, we came across groups of teenagers from the Tallaght, Ballymun and Inchicore areas who appear to specialise in stealing motorcycles.
Some of the groups create TikTok videos, which appear designed to taunt their victims, juxtaposing photos of stolen motorcycles with screenshots of pleas from their owners that have been posted on biker community Facebook pages.
Another unusual feature is that the motorbikes are typically being stolen to rally them for fun, not for profit. While groups of teens may sell on the vehicles between each other for small sums, they are generally not broken up for parts, which would be more financially lucrative.
The bikes are generally rallied until they are damaged, destroyed or gardaí recover them. Gangs may use them for months, or days. The thieves’ brazenness and apparent sense of impunity is a deep source of frustration and anger among, not just victims, but across the wider biker community.
“My heart goes out to people… they’re working hard, they’re after paying for a bike and somebody just comes along and takes it away, says Niall Stephens of Bikeworld.
“For some of these people their bikes [are] a tool for a job. They need it to get to work and somebody is depriving them of their livelihood. For other people, it’s a hobby. It’s their pride and joy and somebody takes it away from them.”
The good news for Léonie Beving was that after three days of seeing photos of her motorbike on social media, she finally got it back. Initially, people who had her vehicle contacted her through a third party and offered to sell her bike back to her for €600.
The sisters gave it some thought but decided against dealing with them. “We just felt like we were getting set up to be robbed again,” Gaia said. “So we backed out.”
Then they had a stroke of luck, gardaí came across the motorbike and retrieved it. It turned out that the youths who stole the motorbike could not open the petrol tank without the key. The bike had run out of fuel and was now useless to them.
The vehicle was badly damaged. The fuel tank had been dented, apparently from attempts to open it and the back tyre was ruined. The engine had been revved so hard that the exhaust melted the fairing.
The whole experience was “very upsetting, very draining,” Léonie said. “Especially seeing them driving around… and just smashing it up just abusing [it].”
“It just makes you not want to be anywhere near Dublin,” said Gaia, “it’s also so frustrating that nothing is being done and it’s so brazen and in the open.”
“It is a far bigger deal than stealing a bicycle,” she said. “It’s a vehicle, it’s quick, it’s fast, it’s dangerous. They can hurt themselves, they can hurt others.”
Paul Murphy and Sallyanne Godson’s report will be on Prime Time on 19 December at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.
