Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate some movements and changes were made to the schemes last July on the back of the work of the group the Minister mentioned. It took away some of the particularly offensive elements of the scheme, for example, the price cap was reduced. Much more needs to be done. The trickle-down economics approach is that those who can afford electric vehicles can get them now and the people who actually need to have electric vehicles, those who are car dependent and will be car dependent in future, can get them at some stage in the distant future when those who have means are ready to move on. With regard to the State showing leadership on this, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, indicated a commitment on State procurement. Is there a commitment that the State will procure electric vehicles at any time in the near future? Will the Minister give us an update on this in the first instance?

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