Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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228. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the steps being taken to improve access to high-capacity electric vehicle charging infrastructure in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10426/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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Zero Emissions Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI) continues to work directly with local authorities on the delivery of EV charging infrastructure.

Home charging is and will remain the primary charging method for most Irish EV owners as it is convenient, cheaper for the consumer and assists in the overall management of the national grid by reducing the impact of reliance on higher powered and peak-time charging.

While over 80% of charging is expected to happen at home, for those unable to do so a growing network of neighbourhood and destination charging will provide a reliable alternative.

The draft Regional and Local EV Charging Network Plan provides a pathway for the accelerated delivery of destination and neighbourhood charging. The delivery of this plan will be led by local authorities, working together to develop regional and local strategies to promote a unified and efficient rollout of charging infrastructure and to facilitate the equitable transition to EVs.

Local authorities are funded by Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland to develop these local and regional EV charging network strategies and implementation plans. This process aims to identify the number of charge points required in each area, including on-street chargers which will serve residents without access to private off-street parking.

Kerry has been identified as part of Region 6 under the network plan and will be working with regional lead Cork County as well as with relevant support organisations and stakeholders to identify the charging needs for their region through a local charging strategy.

Some authorities have already completed their strategies, while others are in progress. It is anticipated that most of these plans will be finalised in 2025. While strategies are being finalised, ZEVI is funding pilot infrastructure projects in a number of Local Authorities, so as not to delay rollout.

Other solutions may include off-street community chargers, shared charging facilities, and/or use of local rapid destination chargers or hubs.

ZEVI will continue to work with local authorities as they develop their strategies and will provide other supports and resources as necessary.

In addition to regional plans, the National Road EV Charging Network Plan will see large banks of high powered chargers installed every 60km on motorways, with a significant provision of high powered chargers also installed on national primary and secondary roads.

A new Scheme to support the roll out of high-power EV recharging infrastructure was launched by ZEVI and TII on February 28th 2025 and is now open for applications. Focusing on approximately 3,000km of the remaining primary and secondary roads on the National Road Network outside of the TEN-T Network, the objective is to support the roll out of EV recharging infrastructure at regular intervals across the relevant parts of the road network.

This third grant scheme follows on from the Phase 1 scheme in early 2024 which focused on the motorways (approximately 1,000km) and the Phase 2 Scheme launched in October 2024 focusing on national single carriageway roads (approximately 1,200km).

Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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229. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will provide a breakdown of the number of high-capacity electric-vehicle charging points, broken down by county, in each of the years 2019 to date; his plans to expand this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10427/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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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. Having an effective and reliable charging network is an essential part of enabling drivers to make the switch to electric vehicles.

Zero Emission Vehicles Ireland (ZEVI), a dedicated Office which oversees and accelerates Ireland’s transition to zero emission vehicles, has significant funding available in 2024 for the installation of EV charging across Ireland.

The number of publicly accessible charge points in Ireland increased from 1,700 in September 2022 to approximately 2,400 in 2024. In order to achieve Ireland’s EU targets under the Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR), it is expected that there will be 3,200 – 6,210 public chargers required nationally, depending on the level of power supplied at each.

The Department of Transport does not at present maintain counts of available publicly accessible EV charging stations in specific regions, but ZEVI are developing a Data Strategy which, when implemented, will give the Department improved visibility on this.

The system will enable the collection of data from charge-points in near real time and provide it on an Open Data basis. The obligation on charge-point operators and owners to share this data is legislated for in the EU Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation.