EV Charging in Coolock Village: Where Things Stand
If you live in Coolock Village and own, or are considering, an electric vehicle, there is a basic problem: you have nowhere to charge it.
For a neighbourhood where most homes are terraced houses with on-street parking and no driveways, this is not a minor inconvenience. It is a barrier to adoption.
The national picture
Ireland had over 2,400 public EV charging points as of 2024, the majority operated by ESB eCars. A €23 million investment programme, co-funded by the Climate Action Fund, was completed in October 2025. It delivered 55 charging hubs, upgraded 100 charge points, and replaced nearly 500 ageing units.
That sounds like progress. But the coverage is uneven. The new hubs have gone to motorway service areas, shopping centres, and high-footfall locations. Residential areas, particularly on Dublin’s northside, have been underserved.
The grid problem
Even if ESB or another provider wanted to install chargers in Coolock Village tomorrow, there is a deeper issue: the electricity grid may not be ready.
ESB Networks has publicly acknowledged “limited capacity” in parts of North and West Dublin. The Irish Times reported that some substations in the eastern Dublin region have reached zero per cent spare capacity, delaying thousands of new housing connections.
Reliability complaints
When the chargers do exist, they do not always work. In April 2024, Social Democrats Councillor Bill Clear described Ireland’s EV chargers as “insufficient or inadequately maintained.” In August 2025, a nationwide ESB eCars outage left users unable to start charging sessions even with remote assistance. By December 2025, users were reporting “EV sequencing error messages” on ESB high-power chargers, sometimes requiring them to physically hold the plug in place to initiate charging.
ESB claims an average 98% uptime across its network. That may be true in aggregate, but it obscures the experience on the ground: when the two chargers nearest to your home are both down, uptime is zero.
What this means for Coolock Village specifically
Coolock Village sits on the R107 (Malahide Road), a regional road that carries heavy traffic between the city centre and the northern suburbs. It is a logical corridor for on-street charging infrastructure, a place where residents park overnight and where passing traffic could use rapid chargers during the day.
But the village has not been included in any of the published rollout phases. There is no ESB eCars hub, no EasyGo charger, and no council-installed unit. The nearest rapid charger is at Northside Shopping Centre, a completely separate location.
Many residents of Coolock Village live in terraced houses along Greencastle Road, Brookville Park, Casino Road, and similar streets where cars are parked on the road. There is no driveway to run a cable to. Home charging is physically impossible for a large proportion of households. Without public infrastructure, these residents are locked out of EV ownership regardless of whether they can afford the car itself.
What about SEAI grants for home chargers?
The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) offers grants to install EV chargers in apartment complexes: up to 90% for local authority schemes, 80% for private apartment blocks, and 60% for build-to-rent developments. But it does nothing for someone in a terraced house with on-street parking. And it does nothing for a village with no apartment complexes large enough to justify a management company application. For Coolock Village, the solution is public on-street charging.
What we are pushing for
The EV Charging Rollout page on this site outlines what an installation could look like: eight on-street AC chargers (22 kW dual-socket units) on Main Street and surrounding roads for overnight residential charging, plus a rapid hub at a strategic location like the library car park for short-stay top-ups.
This is not wishful thinking. It is the kind of infrastructure already appearing in Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire, and parts of South Dublin.
What You Can Do Right Now
- Email ESB eCars. Contact [email protected] and request on-street chargers for Coolock Village. They prioritise areas with the most requests.
- Contact your local councillors. Ask them to push for EV infrastructure in the North Central Area. Names and emails are on the DCC councillor page.
- Use the template. The EV Charging Rollout page includes a pre-drafted email you can send. It takes two minutes.
- Share this article. The more people who know about the gap, the harder it is to ignore.
The uncomfortable truth
Ireland’s Climate Action Plan set a target of 195,000 EVs on the road by early 2025. That target was narrowly met, over 196,000 EVs were registered by October 2025. But the charging infrastructure has not kept pace with registrations, and the distribution of that infrastructure favours wealthier areas with driveways and shopping centre car parks.
Coolock Village is not a wealthy area. It is not a greenfield suburb with planning conditions mandating charger installation. It is an established residential neighbourhood with narrow streets and on-street parking. If the national EV strategy does not account for places like this, it is not a national strategy. It is a strategy for people who already have garages.
We will keep pushing. If you want to help, start with the plan page.
Coolock Village Regeneration Project
Community Initiative
Community Discussion