Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 September 2020
176. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for Climate Action and Communication Networks his plans for transition of State vehicles to electric; and the funding set aside to enable the transition. [23562/20]
View answerThe transition of our national vehicle fleet, including state-owned vehicles, to alternative fuels such as zero-emission electricity is an important step-change to effect a substantial reduction in transport emissions. Public sector vehicles have an important leadership role to play in this transition and will be strongly guided by the requirements under the EU’s Clean Vehicles Directive.
The Clean Vehicles Directive provides for sustainable vehicle procurement by public authorities. It sets binding low- and zero-emission procurement targets by vehicle type, including cars, vans, trucks and buses. The Directive will apply to public contracts for vehicle purchase, lease, rental and hire-purchase from 2021 to 2030. Managing and funding this transition will be a matter for individual Government Departments, agencies and public bodies. I am pleased to see many public bodies already making the move to lower emitting, more efficient vehicles.
To assist with the transition towards electric vehicles (EVs), and pursuant with the Climate Action Plan, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has informed me that he is introducing a new public procurement framework contract which will allow public bodies to purchase EVs with a reduced administrative burden. These arrangements will be in place later in 2020. I expect that this measure will accelerate uptake of electric cars and light goods vehicles within the State vehicle fleet.
Within the Department of Transport, a comprehensive programme of work to ‘green’ the vehicles within the public transport fleet is already underway. As part of Project Ireland 2040, €8.6 billion has been indicatively allocated over the period 2018 to 2027 towards the delivery of a sustainable national public transport system. Ireland has already stopped buying diesel-only buses for the urban bus fleet and under the BusConnects programme, it is expected that approximately half of the public urban bus fleet in the Greater Dublin Area will be low-emitting by 2023, with full conversion by 2030. Work is also underway to move the commuter rail fleet to low-emitting alternatives. There are plans to electrify key heavily-used elements of the rail network by creating a full metropolitan area DART network for the Greater Dublin Area, which is the part of the national rail network that carries over 75% of total rail passengers each year. It will mean high-frequency electrified rail services to Drogheda, Celbridge/Hazelhatch, and Maynooth and the M3 Parkway. The latter project, known as DART+ West, is currently open for public consultation. This project will also include interchange stations with bus, LUAS and Metrolink networks.
The State’s movement towards low-emission vehicles is important in helping to promote and normalize the use of alternative fuels and technologies, including electricity, in the transport sector. Additionally, as battery and recharging technologies develop and a greater range of vehicles become commercially available I expect an increasing number of public bodies to transition to EVs, thereby progressively reducing the carbon footprint from the state-owned fleet and further promoting more widespread acceptance of the lower emitting alternatives.
