Tara Shine

And certainly there are common challenges around grid capacity as we modernize our grids and bring more renewable energy onto our grids, but also put a whole lot more demand on the grid from everything that we're electrifying.

So that's a common challenge, but it's a challenge we've known about for many, many years that we needed to modernize and upgrade our grid.

So that we knew about.

And then I think, you know, I do think there is here a need for better long-term planning and better joined up thinking among the different arms of government to be able to preempt these things, to have the plans, but then to implement the plans and

and be ready.

As far as I can tell from the article, there wasn't a delay in the delivery of the buses.

It seems like Right Bus in Ballymena did have the buses, they're ready.

So it is about pre-empting what will be needed to use those buses, pre-empting it in good time, having the conversations with the grid providers, getting the planning permission in good time, sorting out the tendering issue.

Those are all predictable, everyday kind of challenges.

in putting a good development in place.

So I do think there's room for doing better.

I'm saying that there's a certain amount of this that comes down to planning.

So I don't think I'd order an electric bus without having a very clear sense of what was needed to install the charging capacity.

And if you looked at that, you would discover, obviously, that we have issues in Ireland around grid capacity.

So then you would have had to go and talk to your colleagues who operate Greek capacity to say, what else do we need to know about?

What are the risks?

Are there to our project?

What risks are there to this investment?

If there is going to be a delay to getting approval for this new charging infrastructure, how can we work together to make this happen?

Because obviously it is in the public interest, both in terms of our health from an air quality perspective,