Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The EV policy pathway working group, consisting of seven Departments and the Sustainable SEAI, considered a mix of policies to enable Ireland to meet the climate action plan target which will require a significant ramping up of EV sales. At the end of October, there were 46,600 EVs registered for taxation. We committed €10 million from the climate action fund to support ESB investment in the charging network. This has leveraged a further €10 million investment from the ESB, with the infrastructure to be in place by the end of 2022. This intervention alone will result in 90 additional high-power chargers, each capable of charging two vehicles, 52 additional fast chargers that may replace existing standard chargers and 264 replacement standard chargers with more modern technology and each consisting of two charge points.

I take the Senator’s point on people living in apartments and people without driveways. I look forward to the report we will have in the new year because if we want to meet our target, we cannot have this being a deterrent to people buying EVs. Having an EV must advantage people.