Ms Laura Behan:

Deputy Chambers is absolutely correct. We do not in any way pretend that 6,500 electric vehicles on the road is something to celebrate with alacrity. However, this year demand for electric vehicles in the Irish market shot up in response to the incentives that were put in place in the budget last year. The constraint on the purchasing of electric vehicles this year has been the lack of availability of stock. Car dealers cannot get the stock in quickly enough to meet demand for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids this year. This is a response to a significant step-up in demand, which we find encouraging. Part of the reason the stock is not available to us has been the success of electric vehicles in Norway, which is taking up a sizeable amount of electric vehicle output in the European Union. We wish we could emulate the range of incentives that have been put in place in Norway but the cost of those is running at more than €1 billion already. Despite the range of incredibly generous incentives that have been put in place at a very sizeable cost, only 50% of new vehicles being purchased in Norway are electric vehicles. To put in context the kinds of incentives we would have to put in place to achieve what Norway has achieved on electric vehicles, Mr. Doyle mentioned that we introduced a tolling incentive on 1 July 2018. This provides for a 50% reduction at almost every toll in the country for a full battery electric vehicle and a 25% reduction for plug-in hybrids. A driver with an electric vehicle toll tag will pay half tolls. We are delighted with that measure and we hope it is contributing in some part to the increase in demand for electric vehicles.

Deputy Chambers also referred to cashless transport in the context of electric vehicles. It is worthwhile pointing out that all the electricity to fuel electric vehicles from the public recharging network is currently free. As such, it is totally cashless already.