Dr. Aoife O'Grady:

On EVs, we are supporting a transition. Inevitably the capital supports are going towards people purchasing new vehicles because that is where we are in the EV cycle at the moment. The people who purchase new vehicles in Ireland tend to be those on higher incomes. As I said in the previous response to Deputy Farrell, we have a subgroup examining how we can look at the just transition element of that and how in future years we can support a second-hand market when we have sufficient for it to function in Ireland. We have looked at other lower cost alternatives such as internal combustion engine, ICE, to EV conversion, which we do not believe are available at scale in Ireland at the moment, but in future years, if they become scaleable and deliverable, that would be a lower cost alternative.

There are very generous grants available for EVs and the Government is funding that, but in terms of scale the capital budget that is available for the electrification of transport this year is two-and-a-half times smaller than the capital budget available for the active travel supports. Although we are giving supports to EVs, we are giving much more significant supports to active travel. That does not include the public service obligation, PSO, supports we give on public transport fares. There is much more funding going into those than into supporting the transition to EVs.

In regard to urban areas and the concept of transport poverty and people who do not even have access to a car, this is one of the things we will be looking at in the coming years. We will shortly establish the office for zero emission vehicles in Ireland within the Department. An example of an initiative we have seen in other cities is in Hackney, London. Hackney is an area with pockets of very high deprivation. The council in Hackney has supported electric car clubs for local residents. They have been able to provide dedicated on-street electric charging points. The concept of these is that this is a neighbourhood where people do not have access to a car, so the council has engaged with local car club operators and provided a carbon-free car club option to enable people to have car access. That is something we would like to look at. We are not quite ready to do it at the moment. There are questions about Government procurement and how we engage with the private sector on that. However, we would certainly like to see this kind of initiative rolled out more widely.