Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I hope the Minister will accept that I would welcome new memoranda of understanding with companies like Mitsubishi and, I hope, many others. My main concern is regarding charging infrastructure. The Minister said there is no obstacle to other potential operators of charging infrastructure as long as they all abide by the requirement for standard plugs and so on. That is obvious. We must have the same plug to allow us switch from one system to another but we should be encouraging a non-standardised approach towards clever charging systems tailored for different usages. For example, the position of a TD who might drive 50,000 miles a year will be entirely different from that of an elderly person who drives to the shop three or four times a week. We want to encourage competition and new solutions from companies like Better Place and another half dozen that currently provide interesting, exciting solutions in other parts of the world. We want them all testing in Ireland and competing with ESB to ensure we get the best technology solutions for Irish consumers. We are saying there is no obstacle to inviting that into Ireland but we are asking ESB to do the job. I would like to see ESB tested and competed with to ensure we get the best possible solutions. That will probably be through an ESB dominated charging grid but if we do not invite those other tenders we will not be able to get the benefits of competition.

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