Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am in Leinster House. I thank our witnesses. It has been a fascinating discussion and their opening statements were certainly thought-provoking. I was taken a little by what Senator Dooley said about the school transport scheme. He made a very thoughtful remark on incentivising children to make the change at an early stage in their lives. Interestingly, the transport committee had a discussion some years ago on the American approach to school transport versus ours and the fact that less than half a kilometre creates such a problem for so many children in Ireland, which, as was stated, incentivises their parents to get in touch with us every September. That is a matter we should look at a little more closely.

I have limited time and everybody has said a huge amount already. One of the issues I am taken by is the shared use of vehicles, particularly in our suburban environments. Shared vehicles are already in urban environments; whether they are used or not is a matter for the companies to inform us about. To incentivise a person to get out of their vehicle in a suburban environment and-or use a shared option, it occurs to me that use of the taxation system would be a progressive approach, either by using companies to incentivise their employees and-or incentivising individuals. Given the progressive taxation system we have in Ireland, it would seem a logical course of action to encourage the transition and to switch society over to more sustainable means of transport.

The research I have conducted over the past few years indicates that range anxiety does not really exist in Ireland, unless you are going from Donegal to Kerry. The vast bulk of vehicles, whether hybrids or otherwise, can do well over 400 km. People should not really say they are worried about range anxiety when they are driving to Galway because their vehicles have the necessary capabilities. The development of that technology has taken decades. The current space race is funded by individuals but if you go back to the development of rocketry and aeronautical technologies in the 1950s and 1960s, it took people working on Mercury, Gemini and all those other programmes decades to develop the technology. We are asking car companies and engine manufacturers to change dramatically the entire basis of our transport system over a short period of years. It stands to reason that there has to be electric vehicles costing €100,000 on the market today because it costs billions to develop them. At the same time, we also have to recognise that we must incentivise individuals to make those changes in an affordable and sustainable way.

The point I wanted to make on the development of the technology, and Deputy Leddin touched on this, is whether there is somewhere you can look at available electric or hybrid vehicles and grade them, similar to a league table, on their credentials. Dr. Caulfield mentioned this already in his prior comments on replacing combustion engines with electric vehicles not being the way we should go. It occurs to me that people need to be able to make informed choices and the taxation system should be used to incentivise them. From next year, all new combustion engines should be the subject of a differentiated tax base. That is my view on all these issues to disincentivise people from buying vehicles with combustion engines unnecessarily.