Electric Vehicles
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-30
============================================================

Darragh O'Brien (FF), Dublin Fingal East

The Deputy's point is well made. In the private fleet and private cars, there is a substantial increase in EV registrations. There are over 230,000 EVs on our roads. In the first quarter of this year, there was a significant increase with about 40% of all cars purchased being EVs. Heavy goods vehicles is a more complex area. Confidence needs to be instilled in the sector that there are alternatives. The Deputy is right that the level of drawdown is low. The scheme was reworked at the end of 2024. It is kept under review. I have met officials about it. We would like more supports deployed to this sector to bring the transport sector onto a more sustainable and climate-friendly footing. That can be done but the Deputy rightly pointed out it is a challenge across Europe not just here. I take the Deputy's points on board. We are keeping this under review. We will change the offerings if we can see that by changing them more people will access them. There are substantial grants and savings for businesses if they pivot to electric.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-30/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-30