No records of special adviser's meeting with Tesla executives

• Author: Ian Curran
• Published date: 29 June 2022
• Publication title: Irish Times: Web Edition Articles (Dublin, Ireland)

The meeting over coffee between the Minister's adviser Paul Kenny, Natasha Mahmoudian, Tesla's head of public policy for Ireland and the UK, and Tesla's UK market leader Tim Findlay, took place on October 13th last year, the day after Budget 2022 was announced

While a note of the meeting was filed with the Lobbying Register, no detailed records of what was discussed were retained.

According to the filing, the meeting was focused on three topics: the European Union's (EU) Fit for 55 plan to reduce emissions by 55 per cent by 2030; the EU's Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation and the uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) in the Republic.

Emails between FleishmanHillard, the PR firm that set up the meeting on behalf of Tesla Motors Ireland, and Mr Kenny were released under a Freedom of Information request. However, no records of the meeting itself exist, and neither was there any written record of the Minister having been kept abreast of what was discussed.

Mr Kenny was told that Ms Mahmoudian and Mr Findlay would "love the opportunity to meet" him to "provide some background to the company, outline the group's Irish plans and discuss broader EU transportation developments".

However, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the engagement did not include a discussion of Tesla Motors' investment in Ireland, "other than the representatives referencing, in passing, the company's EV infrastructure in the course of the meeting".

The spokesman could not elaborate on the discussion beyond the Lobbying Register filing. However, he said records of the meeting would have been retained had Mr Kenny not expected a written follow-up from Tesla.

"The meeting was a short informal meeting with Tesla Motors, in which the representatives confirmed that they would follow up in writing, but this was not received subsequently," the spokesman said. "Meeting notes would have been retained if no superseding formal follow-up was anticipated. In this case, it was anticipated that there would be a formal follow-up in writing."

Asked whether Mr Ryan was told about the meeting, the...