Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Leddin that lighter and smaller is better than heavier and bigger. Deputy Leddin might have also said "cheaper" because the reality is that very large vehicles, and there has been a trend towards large vehicles in recent years which is a concern, are much more expensive. The Government has given clear signals through changes to the tax system in VRT and motor tax, whereby the system is significantly incentivised towards lighter and, therefore, cheaper vehicles. This has had an impact but we still see a large number of larger vehicles on the market. We will continue to review this.

I agree with Deputy Leddin that the switch to electric vehicles is very beneficial in climate terms and very much to be desired for energy security reasons. They are also better cars. They have lower running costs and lower maintenance. There is another issue as it is not only about the climate. We have an issue that if we just replace all fossil fuel cars with electric vehicles we will still have the gridlock problems that we have. We have a mathematical difficulty, particularly in many of our towns and cities. If everyone drives them no one gets anywhere quickly because everyone gets stuck in traffic. We were already seeing a cost of congestion prior to Covid. There was an estimate a number of years ago that congestion was costing €300 million or €400 million a year with a projection to increase to €2 billion a year. It is not just this cost. There is the cost to well-being and creating an urban environment that is less safe and dominated by cars. Electric vehicles have a very important role. We need to switch as fast as we can from fossil fuels. As I said in my introductory remarks, this on its own is not the full picture. We cannot rely only on technological solutions. We need a system change towards a much healthier transport system in every way and a more efficient transport system.