Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein)
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183. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to address the poor public electric vehicle charging network; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33408/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Government is fully committed to supporting a significant expansion and modernisation of the electric vehicle (EV) charging network over the coming years. A draft national charging infrastructure strategy for the development of EV charging infrastructure, covering the crucial period out to 2025 was published for consultation in March. The draft strategy sets out the government’s ambition regarding the delivery of a public EV charging network to support up to 194,000 electric cars and vans by the middle of the decade. Responses and submissions received as part of the consultation are currently being considered in the development of the final Strategy for publication.

Preparations are underway to establish Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI). This Office will play an important role in our transition to zero emission vehicles. It will co-ordinate measures to support the uptake of EVs and the rollout of charge point infrastructure.

Home charging is the primary charging method for most Irish EV owners as it’s convenient and cheaper for the consumer as well assists in the overall management of the national grid. Over 80% of charging is expected to happen at home. There is also a need for a seamless public charging network that will provide for situations or instances where home charging is not possible such as neighbourhood or residential charging, destination charging, and en-route or motorway charging.

A grant is available from the SEAI for those individuals seeking to install a home charger. Work is currently being progressed to expand the EV home charger grant to include shared parking in apartment blocks and similar developments. My Department is working closely with the SEAI and expects a scheme for apartments to open shortly.

€10 million was committed from the Climate Action Fund to support ESB investment in the charging network and this has leveraged a further €10 million investment from 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

- Seventeen high-power chargers distributed across 14 multi-vehicle hubs have been delivered as part of the programme to date.

- 52 additional fast chargers, which may replace existing standard chargers - This work is completed at 36 locations and delivery of new, faster and higher capacity technology is awaited to complete this element of the program, due in August and the upgrade program will resume then. The remaining locations have all been identified and surveyed.

- 264 replacement standard chargers with more modern technology and with each consisting of two charge points - This work is substantially complete. 258 of the chargers have now been successfully replaced.

Further details on the progression of this project including the rollout of charge points in each county can be found at esb.ie/ecars/our-network/network-upgrades.

The Public Charge Point Scheme continues to be available during 2022 to provide local authorities with a grant of up to €5,000 to support the development of on-street public chargers. My Department has reviewed the Scheme and the draft Charging Infrastructure Strategy sets out a number of additional actions to support delivery by local authorities, such as funding capital costs for civil and electrics works, as well as charge point installation, through a new Residential Charging Scheme.

My Department is developing new grant schemes which will support the installation of destination charge points in locations including hotels, car parks and visitor and tourist attractions, both State-owned and commercial sites. This new initiative will be open for applications from both the public and private sector and help provide another critical link in the overall network for public charging.

As well as the ESB ecars network there are a number of private charge point operators with sites already live in Ireland. Once established, ZEVI will be tasked with developing a single interactive portal for mapping the location and availability of all publicly accessible EV charging points and provide offer a central source of information to EV owners.