Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister and Minister of State for attending.

Transport is responsible for 18% of our emissions. Of that, car travel is responsible for 13%. Clearly, we need to tackle that issue. Public transport, obviously, is one method.

In regional areas and rural areas, electric vehicles, EVs, will play a huge role. It is encouraging that EV sales are increasing significantly year-on-year. What is not encouraging is the fact that fossil-fuel powered car sales are still outdoing the sales of EVs. Clearly, there are barriers to the purchase of EVs. EVs provide a solution, especially in rural areas because the way they are designed the lower the speed they travel at the further the range one gets. They are well suited to regional areas.

Unfortunately, in terms of charging infrastructure, in particular, fast-charging infrastructure, there are black holes right along the western half of the country. That needs to be addressed. I firmly believe that local authorities can play a key role in addressing that. In most towns and villages, town centre carparks are owned by local authorities and they play a key role. There was an enhanced package provide to local authorities towards the end of last year to encourage more local authorities to install EV infrastructure but, from what I see on the ground, that is not happening. We are not seeing that extra roll-out of these fast EV chargers. I wonder whether an instruction can again be given to local authorities to avail of the supports and to direct them to roll out EV charging because it is a key part in decarbonising transport.