The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) has expressed concerns regarding an urgent need for a larger publicly funded replacement programme for electric vehicle charging points.

This statement comes after Alliance MLA Andrew Muir contacted the company following complaints from constituents, who having purchased electric cars, were unable to find functioning chargers in the local area.

Mr Muir has now launched a public petition calling on the Infrastructure Minister to urgently produce an electric vehicle charging strategy to improve the current network in Northern Ireland.

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"At the very time we should be encouraging people to buy electric vehicles, our shambles of a network is actually doing the opposite and forcing people to go back to petrol and diesel," he said.

"Recently I bumped into a constituent at the charge point by the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. The charge point wasn't working, and the constituent told me this was the seventh public charge point he'd tried recently that was broken. How are we going to encourage people to go electric when the charging network is this bad?

"I have launched a public petition calling on the Minister for Infrastructure to urgently produce a comprehensive, detailed, electric vehicle charging strategy to bring together the key stakeholders and rapidly improve the current network in Northern Ireland. We currently have the worst charging network in the UK and Ireland. It doesn't have to be that way, and I would urge everyone to send a message and sign the petition."