Paltry 3% of Government f leet are EVs

Red faces for Ryan’s Greens

JUST 391 or 3% of the State’s 12,000 fleet of vehicles are climate-friendly, questions from Social Democrat TD Jennifer Whitmore have revealed.

Ms Whitmore asked the Minister for Transport the number of electric State vehicles as a percentage of the overall number of State-owned vehicles as of June 31.

The figures will be deeply embarrassing for Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, who has declared that replacing diesel and petrol with clean electric vehicles is his political priority.

At the recent launch of Zero Vehicles Emissions, a new quango, Mr Ryan said: ‘Irish people are increasingly moving to electric vehicles. There has been an increase in the purchase of EVs in Ireland so

‘There is an appetite for this switch’

far this year, with 21% of new cars licensed being electric or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, compared with 14% at this time last year.’

He also warned: ‘The Government’s EV target is a critical solution to reducing our transport emissions and is a key part of the strategy which also includes measures to reduce car journeys, through improved public and active transport networks.’

Mr Ryan said that when it came to the Government’s plans to have 945,000 electric vehicles in the Irish fleet by 2030, ‘we are already seeing that there is an appetite for this switch with the increases in the purchase of electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles over the past year’.

Yet Ms Whitmore’s question reveals that there appears to be scant ambition in the State sector, with the Government admitting that just 391 of its fleet is actually eco-friendly.