Mr. Brian Cooke:

There are a few reasons. We have already seen the data. Used imports can play an important role in plugging the gap in used vehicles, but what we have is a new market. If we look at what happened to the overall car market between 2016 and 2019, sterling collapsed after the Brexit vote and we had a flood of used imports. We brought in a lot of older cars and higher emitting cars. That substituted for new cars, so it reduced our new car market. It also undermined the values of used cars in Ireland. We cannot see the new EV market undermined which a flood of used imports would do.

It would also undermine the residual value of used Irish EVs. Overall, it would end up upsetting a market that is in its early stages.