Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The area of electric vehicle promotion has moved from the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to Transport. The Minister, Deputy Ryan has done that. That is under the carbon reduction subheading. Preparations are under way to establish an office of low emission vehicles. It will play an important role on the areas the Deputy outlined. It will engage closely with the public, with businesses and with public sector consumers to drive the availability of and understanding information around EVs. There will be a whole new awareness campaign around it. The public sector will lead the way. For example, many of An Post's vehicles across the country are low emission vehicles. It will also look at the strategic placing of the charging infrastructure in places such as rail stations, hotels and key areas across the country. Therefore there will be a concerted effort around the roll out of the infrastructure and examining how we can inform people.

Many are not ready to change cars in the next two or three years but they may be ready in five or six years' time. Hopefully technology will have evolved further and there will be other support schemes in place, such as commercial vehicles and getting a grant of up to €10,000 to support purchase by hackney drivers and the limousine sector. There is also a scrappage scheme for commercial vehicles which are more polluting and high milage. They are eligible for double the normal grant if they make a switch to electric with up to €20,000 available for a new battery electric vehicle, BEV. That office of low-emission vehicles will be a key part of ensuring that we can raise awareness and let people know what grants are available and do the work on rolling out the infrastructure across the country.