New car sales rose by 18.7 per cent to 136,655 last year, helped by the economic boom and the Government's scrappage scheme, the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) has said. Although final figures are not yet available, the SIMI estimates that around 33,000 new cars were purchased under the scrappage scheme in 1997.

Without the scheme, new car sales were in the region of 103,000, an increase of 8.5 per cent on 1996 when the scrappage scheme was also in operation.