Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive report. I welcome this, and I am very climate aware, as we all are. We all want climate action, which is so important and is part of our duty going forward. However, the biggest issue in this particular case that I am dealing with is the closest car that he can get that will do the mileage. We live in rural Ireland, so when we talk about mileage we are talking about a lot of mileage. An EV that would sustain the mileage he needs would cost up to €80,000. As he said to me, he could not afford it. I do not think his company can afford it.

We need to get a balance. We know we have to have climate action and we are all promoting EVs. We also have to make them within the range of people who depend on a car for their living every day and who drive around the country, and for that car to be sustainable and climate friendly. This man is telling me that he is a young man with a young family and he cannot afford an EV. With this extra 12% tax from 1 January, he does not know where he stands at the moment. While I welcome this measure and, as I said, I am all for climate action, we need to find the balance. We do not want people in a predicament where they are losing money and have a lot of bills to pay when they are trying to play their part in climate action, like we all are. I think this needs to be looked at again and the price of EVs needs to be looked at. In years to come things will have changed because we will have a lot more of them. It is like years ago when the mobile phone came out first. Everybody was trying to get used to them and now everybody is able to have a mobile phone.

In years to come, there will be many more electric cars. We all welcome the money the Minister for Transport announced earlier this week for all these new stations where people will be able to plug in and charge their electric cars.

I ask that the Minister of State examine this issue further. It is a concern. I have had many phone calls about it. We need to find a balance here.

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