SOME 132 ELECTRIC buses are unable to be used because of a shortage of charging points. 

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair John Brady said the figure was conveyed in correspondence with the National Transport Authority. 

The NTA said there are currently 85 double-deck battery-electric buses in Dublin and 47 in Galway and Limerick that have completed the manufacturing process, but they can’t enter the fleet because of the lack of charging infrastructure.

Brady said he believed there had been a “serious attempt” to “downplay the seriousness of the issue” and described the NTA’s response as “totally insufficient”. 

“They cite a number of reasons, planning being one of those, and their inability to forward plan, which to me seems absolutely nonsensical,” the Sinn Féin TD said. 

“It outlines a timeframe for some of those buses to come into use – some of them aren’t due to come into use until 2027, which is totally, totally unacceptable.”

He said local authorities in two different areas have taken different approaches in terms of planning.

“In Limerick, exemptions were put in place to roll out the installation of electrical charging infrastructure, whereas Galway City took a different approach, where they had to go through the full planning process, even though there is seemingly an exemption within the planning legislation.”

‘Serious litany of failures’

Brady proposed writing to Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien to “get an explanation around why different local authorities are taking different approaches”.

He also proposed to write to the NTA “to see what additional EV buses have been ordered, what the timeframe for their introduction are, and what learnings have been made in terms of a serious litany of failures, which currently sees 132 buses lying idle”.

Meanwhile, People Before Profit’s Paul Murphy said the NTA appeared to “suggest there would be a problem having extra sockets”.

He said this in reference to correspondence from the NTA, which stated that the time between the authority placing an order for an EV bus and purchasing it can be between one and two years.

The NTA said that there can then be “up to a year between the delivery of the first bus and the last bus under a single order” and that as a consequence, “it is virtually impossible to fully align charger installations and bus manufacturing schedules”. 

“This is not unique to Ireland and has been a common challenge globally as bus fleets go electric,” the NTA said. 

Murphy said: “It’s okay to have the chargers in place before the buses arise. That doesn’t create a problem. The problem arises when you have the buses in place without the chargers. It’s put forward as if it’s a convincing explanation and it isn’t.”

Speaking on Newstalk’s The Hard Shoulder this evening, Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien acknowledged that the situation was “not great”. 

O’Brien said he expects “the vast majority” of the buses to be on the road by the third quarter of this year, with some “as soon as next month”. 

‘Won’t happen again’

“The reason for that was actually some of the charging infrastructure in a couple of the depots needed to be upgraded, and there was a lag,” O’Brien said.

“Lessons will be learned from this, trust me,”

He said there was an opportunity following the Covid pandemic to purchase more buses with a view to long-term deployment, but he said “it’s taken longer than it should” to get them into the system.

“We are going to get these moving. I get the point. It’s not something that should happen, but thankfully the infrastructure that’s been put in place now and the additional infrastructure will ensure that this will not happen again.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Department of Transport said 132 buses are available for delivery “but require the installation of charging infrastructure in depots”. 

“Of the 85 additional buses available for Dublin, 16 are being prepared for delivery and will enter operation shortly,” the spokesperson said.

“The remainder are targeted to enter operation in Q3 as additional charging infrastructure is installed in Phibsborough and Harristown.”

Four buses are being prepared for delivery in Galway “shortly” while a further 43 buses are expected to begin entering service from Q4 of this year as additional charging infrastructure is installed at the depot, they added. 

“As of today, over 250 battery-electric buses are in operation across the country, including the fully electric services in Limerick and Athlone.”

The NTA is in the process of finalising an Electric Bus Charging Infrastructure Framework procurement competition, which allow for the quicker installation of charging infrastructure at Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus depots across the country.

The spokesperson said this framework will be in place later this year. 

“There is currently no loss to bus system capacity and operators continue to run diesel buses to ensure no loss of service in the interim,” they added. 

With reporting from Diarmuid Pepper