Dr. Aoife O'Grady:

We view local authorities as being some of our key partners in the delivery of the EV infrastructure strategy. There are a couple of reasons behind that, one of which is the need to provide EV charging infrastructure for people who do not have access to their own driveway. I would not anticipate that the rates would be quite as cheap as home charging but we want to be able to provide a slower charge at lower rates when people can charge at night so it does not become prohibitively expensive for them to charge their EV. Local authorities as road authorities in Ireland have control over that local and regional road network. That is step one where we see them being a key partner.

Step two is that local authorities themselves are often landowners and own land with significant public car parking space, whether that is municipal offices, leisure centres or libraries. We would see those types of publicly accessible car parks as being ideal locations for destination charging. We have identified in the strategy that we would anticipate working very closely with local authorities in rolling out that. In the context of the strategy we have identified that we would support local authorities through providing funding for them to identify what we would call a local area charging network. That could be done on a regional basis with a number of local authorities, or if there is one very large local authority they might do one just for them. That would identify the locations where one might have the neighbourhood charging and the destination charging in that local authority area. It would identify an implementation plan about the prioritisation and the series in which these would be rolled out. On that basis, we would have a sense of the right size and the right fit for EV chargers in that local authority area with regard to the public and State-owned lands.