Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on the issue of electric vehicles. What is the Minister's sense of the transition to electric vehicles? I accept that we preferably want to get people onto public transport and active travel. The Minister touched on the point that we had the first six-month figures from SIMI. He referred to the slowdown in sales in the western world. The big opportunity for electric vehicles is battery electric vehicles as opposed to plug-in hybrids. What is the Minister's sense of that transition as it relates to Ireland, the prospect of a second-hand market and, as Deputy Kenny and others have mentioned, the incentives in those areas that, in the longer term, are likely to still be car-dependent? The intervention needs to be in the right place at the right time to deliver the right outcome. Firstly, I ask the Minister to reflect on where we are in the transition, and secondly on the supports and interventions that he believes are necessary to deliver the right outcomes. There have been some criticisms of the planned reductions in electric vehicle supports in the years ahead. Does he think that needs to be reviewed in light of the slowdown and the transition?