Ms Laura Behan:

In terms of the freight sector, Deputy Stanley referred to the Euro 6 standards in respect of HGVs. The Irish Road Haulage Association is correct that the Euro 6 standard for HGVs is an extraordinarily high standard with regard to air pollutants. It has certainly put in place a lot of technology to trap the most harmful particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, NOx - the nasty air quality pollutants that come from diesel vehicles generally. In that respect, the standards are a very significant development. They have been in place for a few years. However, what is probably most significant in terms of reducing carbon emissions from the HGV sector is the negotiations that are currently ongoing at EU level for the putting in place of a new set of regulations around CO2 in heavy-duty vehicles where the EU is seeking at the manufacturing stage for the first time to put in place a standard, which will require full information to be made available to all purchasers as to the carbon outcome of the truck, that is, however many grammes of carbon per kilometre the truck will emit. That monitoring is beginning next year. From then, the EU hopes to be able to secure a reduction every year with the setting of specific targets, for 2025 and 2030, that manufacturers will be required to produce vehicles that are less emitting. That is by far the most cost-effective way of ensuring that the road freight fleet starts on its decarbonisation journey.

The technologies in the HGV sector are not progressing at the same pace as they have been in the cars and vans sector - the lighter duty vehicles. The deployment of battery technology, in particular, is not suitable for the most part yet for HGVs although there are some promising pilots. Hydrogen is slow to develop also in that space.

For us, the Deputy is absolutely correct. One of the key alternative fuels that we need to start deploying within our freight fleet in the absence of those technologies happening is compressed natural gas, CNG, and using that then as a pathway to the introduction of biogas in the system. The European Union is supporting Gas Networks Ireland in deploying a range of refuelling infrastructure. We expect to have 14 CNG publicly-available refuelling stations open by 2020. Gas Networks Ireland is working with private fleets to allow for refuellers.

Phase 1 of the low emissions vehicle, LEV, task force looked at EVs but phase 2 is turning its attention to the gases - CNG, biogas and hydrogen - in terms of how we might work with our colleagues in the Departments of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform and Housing, Planning and Local Government to ensure that the system examines fully what incentives might be needed, but also what impediments might be in place within the system, to allow us to move forward in the gaseous fuels space, as we have managed successfully to do in terms of EVs. That is where that is at present.