Ms Laura Behan:

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry and all of the electrical vehicle importers were key stakeholders in the low emission vehicle task force. They participated in all our stakeholder engagements and even sat in on a number of the task force meetings. We have been able, through such fora, to impress on them the need to increase the number of electric vehicles that are being imported into Ireland. We have a very generous incentive regime through which we have generated a demand for electric vehicles in Ireland. It was a question of building faith with the industry that if it ordered electric vehicles in the sorts of numbers we want to see, there would be a market for them here. That took a while to build up but the Government's bona fides have been demonstrated by the incentives that have been put in place in order to try to expand the market. The industry is now stepping up its ordering and importation of electric vehicles.