Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If it gets any worse, the remainder of the reply is not worth listening to. If the Minister was serious about addressing the crisis in the transport sector vis-à-visemissions and getting electric vehicles on the road, he would be doing a lot more in terms of incentivising than running a road show around the country. People need serious incentives. There was an action plan in 2014 which talked about having 50,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2020. In 2015 there were 618 electric vehicles sold or imported into Ireland. That is pathetic. Less than 0.25% of cars sold or imported into Ireland in 2016 were electric vehicles.

The current programme for Government, to which the Minister is a signatory and in the putting together of which we are led to believe he had a very significant part, stated that Ireland wanted to be a global leader in the uptake of electric cars. That is an ambition similar to that of the Norwegian Government, which is all very well and good except that Norway has approximately 71 times more electric cars than Ireland had in 2016. The Minister has a bit of catching up to do. That road show he has in mind would need to get an electric shock pretty fast.

See this speech in context