Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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53. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources his plans to encourage the development of the electric vehicle fleet and electric vehicle charge points here. [38630/16]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The 2009 Renewable Energy Directive sets all Member States a binding target that at least 10% of the energy used in the transport sector must come from renewable sources by 2020. Ireland aims to meet this target mainly through the increased use of sustainable biofuels, with electric vehicles (EVs) also making a small contribution. In 2015, 5.7% of the energy in transport was from renewable sources.

Since 2011, the Electric Vehicle Grant Scheme has been supporting and incentivising, through grants of up to €5,000, the deployment of EVs in Ireland. These grants are in addition to tax incentives such as the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) reliefs of up to €5,000, which apply to EVs and Accelerated Capital Allowances (ACA), which allows companies to offset the cost of investment in qualifying technologies including EVs.  Budget 2017 extended the relief from VRT on EVs for a further 5 year period and on Hybrid vehicles for 2 years.The purchase of 1,702 new EVs has been supported since the Grant Scheme commenced.  Of these, 615 have been grant aided to date this year which is an increase from 2015 when 555 were grant aided over the full year.

The ESB, through its ecars programme, has installed almost 900 publically accessible charge points for electric vehicles. These include 79 DC fast chargers, most of which have been installed mainly on the inter-urban roads. The location of these charge-points is available on the ‘ecars’ section of the ESB’s website at.  In addition, ESB ecars has installed over 1,900 charge points in domestic and commercial premises.

In accordance with the commitment in the Programme for Government, my Department and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport are establishing and will co-Chair a Low Emissions Vehicles Task Force involving relevant Government Departments and agencies. The first meeting is scheduled for later this month.  A key task will be to examine as a matter of priority what further actions are necessary to further stimulate EV sales and other low emission vehicles to 2020 and beyond. In addition, the Task Force will look at actions to ensure sufficient and effective charging infrastructure exists as the EV fleet develops.