Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is absolutely right. The development of chargers right across the country is critical because even if a person living in south Dublin wants to go to Leitrim, he or she would want to make sure that he or she can get there and back and that there is infrastructure at every point along the way.

A scheme to support the installation of on-street charging points for EVs opened for applications from local authorities in September 2019. The funding supports the rolling out by local authorities of up to 1,000 on-street public charging points for EVs over the next five years, including up to 400 such points this year. The scheme is administered by the SEAI and caters mainly for electric vehicle owners who rely on on-street car parking as their primary means of parking near home. I am referring not only to the Deputy’s case; I refer also to where charging is not yet possible, such as along a row of terraced houses.

So far, I have been disappointed with the level of uptake by local authorities. I only discovered these figures yesterday in preparing to answer this question. All Deputies should be contacting their local authorities to ensure that they are aware of what they can do. The level of uptake by and the number of applications from local authorities to date have been very low. One way to see an improvement would be to get the local authorities to avail of the funding that exists but that is not being utilised.

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