Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to speak to this amendment. Of course, the discussion is mainly built around electric cars. We have 50,000 electric cars in 2022 and the target, to the best of knowledge, is 850,000 by 2030. Everybody else in the world knows that is not achievable. Most likely, by 2030 anyway, they will be in the dump heap and most people will be told to go back to some other forms of transport.

On a private note, and I very rarely use private conversations I had with the Minister, on one occasion the Minister asked me what was wrong with a car and a plug-in unit for an electric car out in Goleen where I come from and the lovely pubs that are out there, mentioning there is O'Meara's, the Lobster Pot and the Fastnet Bar. The Minister probably knows well. In fairness, he has been cycling - not maybe drinking in the pubs but cycling - around that side of the country. The problem is we do not have any plug-in chargers. That is a major issue in rural Ireland. For instance, I had to leave there yesterday at 4 a.m. How far would it have got me if I had a plug-in unit in the local plug-in station, wherever it would be - probably closer to the Cork side? There are probably a few in west Cork, but not many.

It is a shame that we are talking about electric cars, which are meant to be the future, but that they have not delivered and the Government has not delivered the proper resources for people to have or to purchase electric cars.

I got an email recently from a taxi operator who bought a second-hand electric car and it basically went wallop. I stand to be slightly corrected on this but I think the cost involved was €14,000. He said buying an electric vehicle was the biggest mistake of his life. That person is in a city, where he could have had plenty of opportunities to plug in, but the battery or the unit gave him trouble and there was no warranty. It is like a pig in a poke.

We have also the issue of potentially having no electricity. There is a great danger that the power in this country will blow out some night. I have said to the Minister in the Dáil that if that happens, the Government will be run out of this country and run out of this Dáil because the people will run it out.

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