Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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207. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the estimated full-year cost of providing electric and disability accessible vehicles for the entire taxi public services vehicle fleet, including charging stations. [28138/20]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government set out commitments to support the greening of the taxi fleet and to review supports for wheelchair accessible vehicles to enhance accessbility for people with disabilities. The Department of Transport has a number of specific initiatives in place to support these objectives.

The Electric Small Public Service Vehicle (eSPSV) Grant Scheme offers up to €10,000 towards the purchase of an electric SPSV, and a further €2,500 towards its conversion to a wheelchair accessiblevehicle. Up to €12,500 is offered towards the purchase of a new wheelchair accessible electic SPSV.

Under the Retro-fit Programme to upgrade older public transport infrastructure to make it accessible for people with disabilities, funding is provided for the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle (WAV) Grant Scheme. The WAV Grant Scheme has been operating annually since 2014 and provides grants for the acquisition or conversion of suitable vehicles to operate as WAVs in the SPSV fleet. This scheme offers up to €7,500 for the purchase of a new wheelchair accessible vehicle.

These schemes can be used together. This means that up to €20,000 can be offered towards the purchase of a new wheelchair accessible electric SPSV.

Both of these schemes are administered by the National Transport Authority (NTA), the statutory regulator under the Taxi Regulation Act 2013. In light of the NTA's role in adminstering the scheme, I have forwarded the aspect of your question which relates to the cost of these schemes to the NTA for direct reply.

In relation to charging stations, the eSPSV Charger Project which will see the installation of SPSV-dedicated EV chargers at Dublin and Cork Airports as well as in train stations in Dublin (Heuston), Limerick (Colbert) and Cork (Kent). This project is funded from ring-fenced revenue arising from the increase in carbon tax following Budget 2020, and it is expected that the chargers will be installed by the end of the year and operational from early 2021.