The latest initiative to promote the transition to electric vehicles is a welcome step in what remains a difficult journey towards Ireland’s climate targets. Minister for Climate, Environment and Energy and Transport Darragh O’Brien has announced a pilot scrappage scheme offering grants of €8,500 to owners of petrol and diesel cars aged 13 years or more who trade in their old vehicle for a new electric one. The grant combines a €5,000 scrappage payment with the existing €3,500 EV purchase grant. Running from July on a first-come, first-served basis, the scheme is funded by €10 million from the Climate Action Fund and will support somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 vehicle owners before it reaches its cap.
That is a modest number, and this is explicitly a pilot. But past scrappage schemes, which aimed to get old, dangerous and heavily polluting vehicles off Irish roads, were enthusiastically taken up by the public, and there is reason to expect the same appetite here.
The transition to EVs is one of the few parts of the Government’s climate agenda that is actually hitting its targets. Figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry show EV registrations in May were up 115 per cent on the same month last year, with year-to-date sales running 54 per cent ahead of 2025. The new scheme is designed to sustain that momentum and extend it.
Two features of the scheme are particularly welcome. The price cap on eligible new vehicles has been reduced from €60,000 to €50,000. Incentivising more modest, affordable vehicles is the right approach on its merits, but also goes some way to address a recurring criticism that previous climate incentives amounted, in some cases, to subsidies for the better-off. The emphasis on rural vehicle owners, with 65 per cent of the fund ring-fenced for those outside the five main cities, is also sound. These are the drivers most dependent on private vehicles and least well served by public transport alternatives. Bringing them along on the transition is a political and ethical imperative.
