Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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55. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the number of electric and hybrid vehicles in the national fleet; the number of electric and hybrid vehicles that have been purchased since January 2017; his annual targets for electric and hybrid vehicle uptake; and his plans to incentivise the uptake of these vehicles. [30143/17]

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I look forward to engaging with the Minister on that aspect at another time, but this question relates to the issue of electric vehicles, EVs.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The number of battery electric vehicles, BEVs, and plugin hybrid electric vehicles, PHEVs, in the national fleet is estimated to be 2,970, with 2,300 new EVs bought and registered in Ireland and 670 EVs imported into the State. Since 2015, there has been a steady growth in EVs, with 2017 to date seeing a 25% increase in EV registrations to 529. Of these, 151 are PHEVs while the remaining 378 are BEVs.

The EV grant scheme provides grant aid of up to €5,000 towards the purchase of a new BEV or PHEV and is administered by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. The scheme is kept under review and will continue throughout 2017 with an allocation of €5 million. Additionally, vehicle registration tax reliefs of up to €5,000 apply to EVs.

Budget 2017 extended vehicle registration tax reliefs on PHEVs to the end of 2018 and on BEVs to 2021. To date SEAI has paid out 2,159 grants amounting to a total value of €10.2 million.

My Department and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport are co-chairing a low-emission vehicles, LEV, taskforce involving relevant Government Departments and agencies. In respect of electric vehicles, the topics being examined include market growth potential and public leadership, and policy levers to stimulate this growth. A holistic Government approach is essential to establishing the right framework for the long-term development of the market. I also plan to introduce, in conjunction with the SEAI, an electric vehicle driver experience programme which will encompass a pilot electric vehicle car sharing scheme, an electric vehicle roadshow, and commercial fleet trials.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

There is a range of factors that are accepted internationally as being barriers to the widespread early transition to EV technology including limited vehicle choice, range anxiety, low consumer acceptance and awareness. The transition being slower than anticipated is not specific to Ireland and does not reflect a national lack of ambition or policy support. Given that the Government supported EV grant scheme is demand-led, I do not believe that it is appropriate to set annual targets for EV uptake.

It is clear that a lot of change has occurred in this space. In 2011, when the EV grant programme began, only two types of vehicle were available in Ireland, while today there are 25 unique models for Irish consumers to choose from which are all available on the grant scheme. Technical issues such as range anxiety, which would have greatly dissuaded consumers a number of years ago, are being resolved through technology development in the area of batteries and fast chargers. It should also be noted that we have had considerable achievement in certain respects. For example, unlike other countries, such as the UK or France, we have a single entity operating the nationwide EV charging network which enables Irish consumers to access the EV charging infrastructure easily throughout the country. 

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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If it gets any worse, the remainder of the reply is not worth listening to. If the Minister was serious about addressing the crisis in the transport sector vis-à-visemissions and getting electric vehicles on the road, he would be doing a lot more in terms of incentivising than running a road show around the country. People need serious incentives. There was an action plan in 2014 which talked about having 50,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2020. In 2015 there were 618 electric vehicles sold or imported into Ireland. That is pathetic. Less than 0.25% of cars sold or imported into Ireland in 2016 were electric vehicles.

The current programme for Government, to which the Minister is a signatory and in the putting together of which we are led to believe he had a very significant part, stated that Ireland wanted to be a global leader in the uptake of electric cars. That is an ambition similar to that of the Norwegian Government, which is all very well and good except that Norway has approximately 71 times more electric cars than Ireland had in 2016. The Minister has a bit of catching up to do. That road show he has in mind would need to get an electric shock pretty fast.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Dooley. He is great for the one-liners. The reality is that, to date, 40% of the total number of electric vehicles purchased in Ireland have been purchased in 2017. We will hit our target by the end of the year if progress continues along the lines that we have seen to date.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The target is 50,000 electric vehicles by 2020.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I did not interrupt Deputy Dooley. He mentioned the issue of Norway. He forgot to mention that Norway is reviewing the incentives because of the costs involved. Yes, significant incentives were put-----

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is because they have so many EVs.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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-----in place in Norway. If we had the resources and oil reserves that Norway has we could put those types of resources in place. There was an interesting report in our national newspapers recently which said that by 2022 it will make financial sense for most drivers to drive an electric vehicle. We need to encourage people to move away from conventional vehicles. I myself drive a hybrid and I am sure Deputy Dooley does the same. We need to lead by example. The AA recently carried out a survey which showed that 10% of people are likely to buy either a hybrid or an electric vehicle the next time out. We want to encourage people to move to electric vehicles. That is why we are rolling out this demonstrator project, which will involve car sharing, which is a bit like the dublinbikes scheme, which has been a huge success. We will be doing it in Dublin and Cork to encourage people to try out these vehicles. We will run this road show right across the country so that people can try them out and we will engage with the commercial companies in respect of commercial fleets.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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It all sounds great but the simple question is what target the Minister will hit by the end of the year. The target set back in 2014 was for 50,000 vehicles to be on the road by 2020. At best, there will be 6,000 or 7,000 electric vehicles on the road by 2020. If the Minister thinks it is worthwhile mentioning that he will hit some notional target for electric vehicles by the end of this year then I really do not think he has any concept of where we need to be at. What is needed is a very significant incentive - a plan and a programme that will grab the attention of the hard-pressed motorist who has been hit with a significant increase in car insurance, who has seen hikes in the price of fuel in recent years and who pays huge amounts of tax to the State. The Minister knows what is required to shift the dial on this matter. I understand that Norway had more money to put behind it and I know why Norway is now limiting the incentives. It is because they have reached critical mass. People have gotten over the range anxiety and are no longer concerned about the durability of the cars. The Minister needs to take a big bang approach to get those 40,000 to 50,000 electric vehicles on our roads. Then, and only then, in my humble opinion, will the sector start to mushroom and grow along conventional lines of activity. Trying to get incremental growth from 0.1% of the marker is a long way off.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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As Deputy Dooley knows, it was his own Government that set notional targets in the first place-----

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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The target was set in 2014.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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-----and then did not put the infrastructure in place to follow through on them.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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We were not in Government in 2014.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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That is why these targets have been revised downwards. I am dealing with the situation that is in front of me currently. The advice that is available to myself and the public is that electric vehicles will make financial sense for the vast majority of drivers in this country within the next four years. The reality is that diesel vehicles have very little value at trade-in now because dealerships know that the long-term prognosis for diesel is that it will be gone. Drivers are already shifting from diesel to hybrids. We need to drive the incentive further towards electric vehicles. If I were to ramp up the financial supports available for electric vehicles today, I could guarantee that some other colleagues in the House in the not too distant future would be talking about a debacle of the type seen in Northern Ireland with the renewable heating incentive scheme here in the Republic in respect of electric vehicles.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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That is what leadership is about. The Minister cannot be scared.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Yes, we need to provide leadership. That is what we need to do and the best way to do that is to make these vehicles available to people, to allow people to test drive them and see how easy it is to drive them, and to lead by example.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call on Deputy Mick Barry. I know he will lead by example and observe the time limits. I make that remark to all sides of the House.