Electric Vehicles
Dail Éireann — 2023-05-04
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Anne Rabbitte (FF), Galway East

I thank Deputy Stanton for raising this important matter. I acknowledge that this is an area in which the Deputy has particular interest. The Deputy is no different from me in that, as someone who represents a rural constituency, he understands completely the challenges parents of this young lady and others have come to him about. The Deputy previously asked about difficulties young people may have in attending training centres and places of employment. I responded that a PA service may be of benefit. I wish to clarify that I was speaking specifically of the provision of PA support, which the Deputy has raised here, in circumstances where young people are attending further or higher education. I agree with the Deputy in that, unfortunately, geography and pot luck are sometimes the case.
The Deputy is asking for the reinstatement of this service. He is also right - this is not stated in the notes - that I reconvened the relevant committee and had officials from all Departments attend it. What was very interesting was that while we say within the HSE that we do not provide transport to attend services, we spend €40 million on transport annually. The HSE spends €40 million in supporting young people to attend their day services.
This funding includes both capital grants to support the purchase of EVs and capital funding for the delivery of EV charging infrastructure.
Further funding has been allocated in 2023 to ensure the continued transition to EVs. This underpins the Government’s commitment to making EVs accessible to all. This funding will continue to incentivise the switch to electric vehicles as well as enabling the expansion of a fast and rapid electric vehicle charging network to stay ahead of demand.
There are currently almost 85,000 EVs registered on Irish roads as of the end of January. That number is expected to increase as the price of EVs continue to fall relative to their combustion engine equivalents. It is expected that as manufacturers ramp up EV production, costs will become more comparable to traditional combustion engine cars within the next number of years, which will make the total ownership much more attractive and competitive, particularly given fuel prices trends.
A number of new vehicles entered the market last year with a trend towards smaller and mid-size family cars. An additional number of new market entrants are expected to further expand the availability of more affordable EVs starting this year. Further affordable segment models are expected to be announced as new EV focused manufacturers enter the European market.
Our EV incentive system is weighted towards the lower cost and smaller end of the market. An EV purchase grant award is available to vehicles with a maximum cost of €60,000. This grant has been reduced to €3,500 from July this year. There is a further generous vehicle registration tax, VRT, rebate available to EVs, with the maximum amount available to vehicles costing less than €40,000, and no VRT relief available to vehicles costing more than €50,000.
As per the terms and conditions of the EV grant programme, privately purchased vehicles of category M1, that is, passenger vehicles with no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat, with a retail price of €14,000 or above, are eligible for grant support. Any privately purchased M1 category vehicles with a retail price of below €14,000 are currently not eligible to receive grant payments.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-05-04/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:51:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-05-04