Mr. Seán Armstrong:

We need to differentiate between new buildings, or buildings undergoing a major renovation, and existing buildings.

For new buildings and buildings undergoing major renovation, we are required to have the regulations for infrastructure in by March 2020, which is quite a short timeframe. We are working with the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI. We must have a specification and a standard, which will go for public consultation by the NSAI standards committee by the end of the year, and the public consultation will have to be reviewed. In parallel, we will develop our regulation to have it in place in the required timeline, within 15 months, and it will apply thereafter. We will have to develop the exact detail and what the transition arrangements are as part of the development of the regulation and public consultation period. As I said, for new buildings and buildings undergoing major renovation, there will be regulation in place by March 2020 for buildings with more than ten parking spaces.

For existing buildings, there is a five-year lead-in, as the Deputy highlighted, because there needs to be some build-up time to allow buildings to be retrofitted with these charging points. That is why there is a time span given for the introduction of those charging points.