Motor industry chiefs still want a change to the current car registration system
A call to change the registration plate system in Ireland from motor industry bosses to encourage for a broader distribution of new car sales throughout the year seems to have been ignored.
For many years the current system, which sees the majority of new car sales taking place in the first three to six months of the year has been criticised, as it is felt that undue pressure is being put on businesses during the rest of the year.
The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) produced figures showing that 54 per cent of new car sales occurred in the first three months of the year, with 70 per cent of all annual sales taking place in the first six months.
Industry experts blamed this on motorists wanting the latest registration plate for that year, regardless of which car came attached with it.
However, the current economic climate has changed and there is evidence to suggest that consumers are now trying to avoid new cars.
Eddie Murphy, Managing Director of Ford Ireland said, “Our current system is easy to understand and is a big driver of sales. However, if there is a bad start to the year, it means that the State’s revenue will have no chance to recover, as sales in the second half are so low. It is a high-risk system.”
National Car Test (NCT) was also suffering under the present system according to Mr Murphy who said, “The National Car Test system is also based on date of first registration and suffers huge backlogs in the early part of the year, with a very quiet final few months.”
A spokesperson for Applus, the company that operates the NCT, said that a new registration system would help them, as it would ‘spread the NCT Tests more evenly across the year’.
However, there are no plans to change the 23-year old car registrations system in Ireland. A spokesperson for the Revenue Commissioners said, “There is no plan, at present, to review the current registration system.”
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