Mr. John Martin:

I will take that question initially. I thank Deputy Smith for the question. I would not necessarily agree we are saying EVs are the only game in town. Of course, they have a strong role to play here, both in the context of private electric vehicles but also in terms of the electrification of the public transport fleet. Having said that, our statements and our commitments in CAP21 look across a whole range of other areas as well. While EVs have a role to play, this is definitely a multifaceted approach.

One of the key areas we are looking at is increasing the number of sustainable transport journeys taken daily, up to half a million per day. That would include public transport and active travel. There is substantial ongoing investment, as the Deputy is aware, at the moment in public transport. Some of it will take longer than others. We have projects such as DART+, BusConnects, Connecting Ireland and MetroLink all planned, and some of these will be online within the timeframes we are talking about - not all of them, obviously. We are also looking at fairly significant investment in improving the existing services and improving the reliability and attractiveness of the existing services to increase the use and modal shift from private cars to public transport.

We are also looking significantly in the area of active travel. Almost 60% of journeys less than 2 km are by car. We have a strong role to play as a Department. Our agencies also have a strong role to play to communicate to people the importance of modal shift away from the private car, be it a fossil fuel car or an EV, and moving into other, more sustainable forms of transport, such as public transport and active travel. In the context of rural Ireland, that is a very important point, that we need to enhance the services offered in rural Ireland. That is what is Connecting Ireland is all about. That will take a while to roll out, but there are improvements being made on an ongoing basis. The NTA annually reviews its services and the delivery of its rural services and looks to identify improvements that can be made not just to the routes and frequency but also to the attractiveness, such as in improved bus shelters, real-time travel timetables etc. This is very much a multifaceted approach and is not focused just on EVs.

In terms of EVs themselves, I might ask my colleague, Dr. Aoife O'Grady, to make some comments. Ms Andrea Lennon may also wish to comment in the context of biofuels, which also have a very important role to play in the eight years between now and 2030.