Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 40: To ask the Minister for Transport the role his Department has in the promotion and rollout of the national electric car and vehicle programme; the number of hybrid electric buses funded by his Department; his plans to encourage delivery and service vehicles to switch to low CO2 and electric power vehicles; the size of the national electric vehicle fleet; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45888/09]

Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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In February I launched Smarter Travel, Ireland's new sustainable transport policy. It contains a commitment that electric cars will form 10% of the market by 2020. The most recent figures available to my Department indicate (November 2009) that just over 0.2% of vehicles - 4,066 - are a declared fuel-type of hybrid electric cars. This gives some idea of the scale of our ambition to increase this figure significantly.

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, in conjunction with the ESB, is leading on the national deployment and roll out of Electric Vehicles. Officials in my Department are members of the Interdepartmental Working Group on the Electric Vehicles.

My Department has funded a pilot scheme to deploy a prototype Hybrid bus as part of the Dublin Bus fleet, since December 2008, with the purpose of testing and evaluating the benefits of hybrid bus deployment. The hybrid bus has undergone continuous monitoring since its deployment and improvements are being made.