Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The budget did little to support a greater uptake of electric vehicles. The elimination of benefit-in-kind on a one year basis is a disincentive. Companies, as the Minister knows, seek certainty around their asset base and how they are taxed and very few will invest if it is just for one year.

The Minister could nearly substitute the words "electric vehicle" for "broadband" in what he announced. It is what Tesla and Nissan are doing, and there is a task force and another group looking into it.

If we are to get real about addressing the climate change issue, we must target the population of vehicles across the State. We must have an aggressive approach to taking action to encourage behavioural change. I think the Minister can do it. I know he gets it because he has already told me he is using a hybrid vehicle himself and he has complimented the technology that exists. We will have to put in place financial incentives in the short term. For example, we will have to retain the free electricity so let us not talk about paying for five or six years for those who take it up. What has been done to date has not worked. We had 2,970 vehicles by June 2017 in the battery and electric vehicle plug-in hybrid market. The reality is that this is one twentieth of what Fine Gael had promised, although I am not expecting the Minister to answer for Fine Gael. We need to take it out of the hands of the mandarins in the Minister's Department and other Departments who are looking at task forces and a step-by-step approach. It will be 2030 and we will still not have even reached our 2020 targets. We need action.

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