Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That includes electric vehicles. I have nothing at all against electric vehicles if they are to be used by people in areas where they can actually use them, but I look around this country and see the age of the vehicles and the age groups of people who have cars. I am a father of four. There are nine people in my house but seven cars. They all go in different directions and do different things. I recently upgraded my car after I overturned my previous one in February. An electric vehicle would not do me because I tow. I went and talked to the electric vehicle companies and asked them what the tow capacity of various cars would be and asked them about the mileage of the car if I was towing. They said, "Richard, this is not suitable for you in the position you are in." There are many other people in this Dáil for whom such cars would not be suitable either. I average somewhere between 40,000 km and 50,000 km a year. The companies also told me that it would not be viable for me to keep the car after X number of years. Everyone knows that cars in this country are at an absolutely astronomical price at the moment, so to go from a petrol vehicle or a diesel vehicle even to another petrol or diesel vehicle is a big cost, not to mind going to an electric vehicle.

Recently, a car dealership in Limerick did an open day for its new range of electric vehicles. I will not mention the garage. On its opening day it sold 12 electric vehicles ranging in price from €120,000 to €80,000 to €60,000, only to be told by the manufacturer when the dealership went back to it the following day that it could supply only four of the 12 vehicles this year. This is a mainstream dealer doing what the Government wants it to do and providing electric vehicles. It can provide only four of those electric vehicles.

I then talked to people in the local authority who had one electric vehicle in their family. It would be a good idea if people who cannot afford to change cars were incentivised to change one vehicle in the house, but the Government has not come with such an incentive yet, and it should do. There are people in this city who might do only 10,000 km in one year. An electric vehicle should be ideal for them. I left at 7.30 a.m. to come in here this morning from the Bray-Wicklow side. I spent an hour and 20 minutes in traffic, lanes in and lanes out. I tried to count how many electric vehicles I was passing. I passed only seven in that hour and 20 minutes, in a city where there is public transport, including Luas, buses - you name it. Then again, all the buses that were passing were on diesel fuel. How do we incentivise people to buy electric cars or even hybrids? The issue is the cost. At the moment people are dealing with the cost of trying to keep the lights on.

The Government is trying to put electric vehicles onto that grid and the power is not there, at a cost.

Everyone I have been talking to about the charging points has told me they are going to increase the cost on the charging points because of what it costs them. I was on the radio in Limerick last week. The programme looked to see how many charging points were in Limerick city and then they looked at how many were working. Only two were working within the city of Limerick. Then going out to the hotels. They had actually put in four and five points because they knew the tourist’s point of view. Therefore, the infrastructure in this country is being put in by businesses, not by Government. Coming along the motorway to Dublin, some filling stations also have put in electric charging points. It is businesses not Government. The Government is going back to businesses all the time to try to put in infrastructure.

I see where the Minister’s vision is going and I agree with some of it. We all want to bring down emissions. However, when talking about electric vehicles, how much will they cost? We have 2.2 million vehicles in this country. Some people look at these vehicles in the context of a ten-year cycle in order to be able to afford them. In most lease agreements that people get to upgrade their cars, they are looking for between five and seven years - it depends on the vehicle. Many of the Jeeps that farmers have are 2006 and 2007 vehicles because that is all they can afford to make sure they can get to the market with cattle and get fodder for cattle. That is all they can afford. The Government wants them to upgrade to electric vehicles. Inflation has gone through the roof which means car prices have gone through the roof. There is also the issue of the recycling of these vehicles. It does not make sense.

Deputy Michael Collins recently referred to a person who bought a second-hand 2018 electric vehicle with 122,000 km on the clock. At 130,000 km a fault arose with the car and the person was told, “Sorry, the warranty only covers you to five years or 100,000 km”. He was being charged €14,000 to upgrade the battery and they could not guarantee that the new battery would provide the same amount of power as the previous battery. The wiring loom in some of the older electric vehicles in this country will not take the new upgraded longer life battery. It is all downhill. Yes, we see the vision, but we must also make sure it is affordable going forward, so why not incentivise something?

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