James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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55. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to place existing diesel vehicles ahead of the ban on new diesel car sales; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10501/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Passenger cars account for over half of all land transport emissions in Ireland; therefore, a transition to low and zero emission cars is one of the necessary changes if Ireland is to substantially reduce its transport emissions. Accordingly, electric vehicles (EVs) are a prominent mitigation measure in the Climate Action Plan and Ireland has set an ambitious target of nearly one million EVs on our roads by 2030. With approximately 50,500 EVs currently in Ireland, this target is very challenging but indicative of the scale of the transformation that is needed across all sectors if Ireland is to reduce national emissions and reach its legally binding emission ceiling in future years.

A national ambition has been firmly established that by 2030 all new cars and vans sold in Ireland will be zero-emission capable. 

The European Commission have indicated that a complete ban of the marketing, import or registration of new ICE vehicles in a single Member State is not compatible with EU law, and an EU-wide approach is therefore required. Ireland was signatory to a non-paper to the Commission earlier this year requesting a phase-out date for the sale of new petrol and diesel cars and vans in the EU in line with the objective of climate neutrality by 2050 as well as the introduction of a legal framework that allows Member States to move ahead by taking action at national level to incentivise early phase-out of new petrol and diesel cars and vans. The paper can be viewed at www.permanentrepresentations.nl/permanent-representations/pr-eu-brussels/documents/publications/2021/03/10/non-paper---transition-to-zero-emission-light-duty-vehicles.

In addition, on Transport Day at COP26,  I signed a sponsored declaration to accelerate the transition to 100% zero emission cars and vans. The declaration is an important signal of ambition at a global level. In line with our Programme for Government commitments, Ireland has even greater ambitions, targeting a switch over of one million electric vehicles by 2030 to bring us on a trajectory to achieving electrification of all new car sales well ahead of 2035

These declarations are consistent with Ireland’s ambitions to tackle transport emissions. They follow the publication of the Climate Action Plan (CAP) ’21 which outlines a pathway to a radical and equitable transformation in Ireland’s transport sector over the next nine years as it moves towards decarbonisation. Car manufacturers are responding to these initiatives by introducing a wide range of electric vehicles to the market, and over the coming decade, I envisage a progressive transition to EVs in our car fleet as electric vehicle technology becomes mainstream.

In this regard, my Department recently joined together with three other member states (BE, DK and LU) to propose joint amendments of the CO2 standards for cars and vans standards regulation regarding the 2027 targets, the ZLEV incentive mechanism and the small volume derogation.