C&AG: Car dealers return only €100k to State of €4m in overpaid electric vehicle grants

In 2025, €9.9m of grants for EV demonstration models were distributed by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to different car dealerships.

Under the European Commission’s de minimis regulation, member states can only provide a maximum of €300,000 of State aid to an individual commercial undertaking over a rolling three-year period.

In February 2025, the SEAI commissioned an investigation into groups that had overclaimed money from the grants. They then established a process to recover potential overpayments.

The SEAI grants were claimed by a web of 80 individual dealers linked to 15 overarching groups. The cumulative amount of the grants claimed by each individual dealer far outweighed the maximum amount that their parent groups were legally entitled to claim.

Under the EU legislation, the Comptroller and Auditor General has argued that each car dealership group is entitled to €300,000 in grants, rather than each individual vendor in a group.

In March 2026, the SEAI board was informed that the investigation unearthed potential overpayments of €4 million. SEAI subsequently revised this figure to €3.9 million.

In May, the SEAI wrote to relevant dealers requesting repayment within 60 days of the letter. Dealers were afforded the opportunity to make representations within 30 days of the date of the letter.

As of September 15, the State has only recouped €109,400. Individual dealers have argued their grants on the EV demonstration model should be precluded to the individual and have refused to pay back the grants.

“Under EU State aid rules, SEAI is obliged to recover the excess payment amounts from the undertakings,” the State auditor wrote in its annual report.

“This could be done on a ‘whole-of-group’ recovery basis, or by recoupment from the individual dealerships that were paid grants after the limit for the group had been reached.

“The recovery of overpayments will need to be achieved without impacting the payment of grants to dealerships for the benefit of purchasers of EVs.”