Mr. Dave McCabe:

I would like to address the public charging infrastructure, particularly the process in which the CER is involved. The feedback from drivers of electric vehicles is that while they appreciate the public charger network as it currently stands, there are significant issues in terms of reliability. There are significant single points of failure, that is, one charger in one location. There is also evidence of significant queuing in Dublin because of the arrival of a large number of second hand electric vehicles. The public charging infrastructure needs to be viewed as a strategic asset in the adoption of electric vehicles and not simply a method of creating another fuelling network. We have to look beyond the provision of electricity as somehow an alternative to diesel. The idea is to get electric vehicles on the road. How we fuel them and how we make money from that is really not relevant in terms of getting there. There will be no charging infrastructure if there are no electric vehicles. Sometimes we forget that the charging infrastructure does not stand on its own two feet.

Our association does not approve of the unregulated transfer of the public charging network to the ESB. It accepts that the ESB is a competent body to manage the charging network but it does not agree with any unregulated transfer. It does not agree, for example, with the decision to charge for electricity at these chargers by way of time or access. Imagine if one paid for fuel on the basis of the duration spent in front of the pump rather than how much fuel one received.

It is a theme for both parties, ESB and the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, that electricity should be charged by access or by time, which differentiates against different forms of EV drivers. We make the point strongly that this is a national asset. Unlike other countries where the networks have been developed as a combination of commercial and ad hoc relationships from state-funded systems, Ireland is unique in the fact it has a single entity network, one smart card to access all charges. In France, one needs six smart cards and in England, one needs three smart cards and one must put money into each of those accounts. It is an absolute mess. In fact, in the UK, Ecotricity is re-evaluating its charging systems. We cannot look around us and simply say it is being done here, there and everywhere, Ireland has a larger proportion of battery electrical vehicles over hybrids and that is purely down to the fact that the incentives are low running costs. It is not a purchase incentive, because second-hand vehicles have been imported into the State in significant numbers which do not entitle the buyer to benefit from the purchase incentives but they benefit from the low running costs, that is night rate electricity and at current free charging at public chargers. We would say there is a place for the commercialisation of public chargers. No driver expects to get his or her electricity for nothing but we would see there is a time and place for commercialisation. We would have seen that the abortive attempt by ESB to introduce a charging regime in 2015, which would have made electricity dearer than diesel had an enormous effect, if one views the sales of EVs in that month.