As I may have mentioned in other threads I did apply for a grant when the second round of eSPSV25 opened. I'm still undecided whether it's a practice run for eSPSV26 (assuming there will be an eSPSV26) or whether I'm going to panic buy 5-6 months before my licence expires and 7-8 months before the current last permissible date of operation for my current vehicle which is in showroom condition with relatively low kilometreage and one careful owner, 2 owners in total.
Anywaysanall, here's where I'm at with the application process:
June 23 - completed initial application on tinternet and received acknowledgement email advising that the application would be processed within 10 working days.
July 07 - having received no further correspondence I contacted NTA by telephone and was advised that my application was then marked priority and would be dealt with that very day.
July 09 - having received no further correspondence I contacted NTA by telephone once again, was put on hold while the lady spoke with the relative department and was then advised that my application was being processed as we spoke. To be fair, I received the initial grant offer letter by email c.24 minutes later.
July 18 - printed the 21 page agreement letter and sent the same by snail mail as required.
July 22 - received second "provisional" grant offer letter.
July 24 - telephoned NTA to seek clarification on a number of points and find out what the next steps in the process are. Briefly, the discussion covered:
The latest "provisional" offer letter states that the offer will expire on the earlier of 09/09/2025 or funds no longer being available*. The extremely helpful gentlemen I spoke with advised that there is a chance that no funds will be available to reimburse my €20,000 as they had c.500 applications with funding potentially being limited to 400 payments. He noted that some applicants might apply for a lower level of grant than they eventually qualify for and get paid hence it's not an exact science at the offer stage. When pressed to quantify in percentage terms the risk of losing one's €20k he suggested a maximum of 5% risk with virtually no risk if one complies with the T&Cs sooner rather than later so, essentially, a sliding scale of 0% to 5%.
I did recall Watty recently opining that we are running businesses and ought to think like businessmen so despite finding it difficult to think of what I do (or don't do) on a day to day basis as a business I did ask if we are supposed to be running a business or chucking €20,000 on a roulette table. In any event, the gentleman wasn't prepared to commit the risk percentages - most likely no more than guesstimates intended to be as helpful as possible - to paper and advised that audio recordings of telephone calls are only available to supervisors and not to clients. He advised that the terminology in the letter is considered to be adequate in alerting applicants to the potential financial risk. He also stressed that it's extremely unlikely that any extensions will be granted in respect of round 2 offers simply because the funding is unlikely to be available... which suggests that despite what one may have read in newspaper reports extensions may have been available during round one?
Interestingly, he did ask what car I intended buying. I suggested Tesla was among the options with the qualification that the salesman in Tesla had advised me that, in his experience, NTA are extremely difficult to deal with particular reference to inflexible deadlines where certain lead times are required for delivery. The gentleman in NTA similarly advised that Tesla can be slow in fulfilling orders so it became quite apparent that there's no love lost between NTA and Tesla. Perhaps Tesla just don't invest such time/effort/money in building relationships as other dealer(s) might.
On the positive front, the gentleman advised that the 2 month time limit doesn't apply to satisfying the scrappage element of the grant. The next step is to provide them with a registration number for the new car, then within 10 working days you'll (hopefully) get another approval and can book an Initial Suitability Inspection and will receive the payment form provided there's still funding available. Then you're home and hosed, you can return the payment form and vehicle destruction certificate (if claiming scrappage) pretty much at your leisure.
*
This Provisional Grant Offer lapses on 09/09/2025 or when there is no longer any amount available under the
2025 Available Funding to be made available as an eSPSV Grant, whichever is earlier.
