John Clendennen (Offaly, Fine Gael)

The Minister of State mentioned the EU JTF. This is a fund we need to focus on in terms of delivery. It is far too slow and creating serious frustration. In reality today, we have a greater variety of electric cars and they are more affordable, but there is still range anxiety. Until we can get the network delivered, we will not address that.

More than ever before, we need to consider a network of fast chargers. There are issues over the reliability of the charging stations in rural towns. I have heard anecdotal examples of stations with three out of four chargers not working. I have never pulled up at a petrol or diesel pump that was not working, and I do not believe an EV owner should have to do likewise. We have to provide EV owners with reliability at the same level. I ask the Minister of State to boost the uptake, address the barriers and come up with some sort of framework to deal with reliability. I encourage those behind all the schemes to engage with the communities and explain to them why they take so long. A six-month interval between the submitting of information and the response is simply unacceptable.

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