Picture this: out in the green rolling hills, on the border of East Galway and Roscommon, on a higgeldy-piggeldy small country road among the fields and hedgerows, an officer of An Garda Síochána – representative and enforcer of the peace and national law – is hitching a lift.
As he sticks his thumb out, probably shivering a bit in the grey October cold, he looks over at the cause of his misery: the electric patrol car, assigned to him by the government. This was done no doubt as a result of a policy recommendation based on another recommendation based on some decision somewhere up the chain who decided this was a good way to help the nation meet its carbon targets and become eligible for EU Green Transition grants.