Dr. Diarmuid Torney:

I agree with what Ms Graham has said. We need another an analytical basis for making that decision. On the face of it, €10 billion in subsidies for electric vehicles does not seem a prudent investment but it is not a once-off, irreversible decision in the way an investment in a large public transport infrastructure project is. If I understand Dr. Caulfield's analysis correctly, we could end up spending €10 billion on subsidies over the course of the decade. However, we can change course at any point in that decade unlike if we decided to build a metro system or something like that, in that we could not change course and we would need to follow through once it is started.

The problem Dr. Caulfield is pointing to is not as severe as the headline figure suggests because we can revisit the level of subsidies at any point during the decade if cost projections do not turn out as expected.