Are car sales pointing to stronger regional economies?

We are used to the point of apathy of hearing that the Irish economy is Dublin-centric. Familiar, too familiar by far, with the calls and complaints that Dublin gets all the jobs, the infrastructure, the investment, the transport links. While that familiarity breeds contempt, there is little doubting the truth of it. The weight of Dublin city and county's population, more than a quarter of the whole, metaphorically tips the country towards the east and just watch all the loose change roll down the slope.

There are some small signs though that this may at last be lifting. Dublin may have the most concentrated knot of population in Ireland, but there's no getting away from the fact that there are numerically more non-Dubs out there. In recent months, we've seen many people taking rising motor sales as a bellwether that the Irish economy is recovering. It stands to reason – if more cars are being bought, people must have more money. If more vans and trucks are being bought, businesses must have need of them.

Taking motor sales as a useful barometric measure of the economy then, figures released today by car history experts Motorcheck.ie seem to suggest that if anything, the extra-Dublin economy is growing faster and better.

Overall this year, to the end of September 90,603 new cars have been registered nationwide, which represents a 27 per cent increase on the same period in 2013. Dublin, however, is actually well below the national average registering only a 20 per cent rise in new car sales for the period.

If it's the outright champion of all-Ireland car sales increases you're looking for, you actually need to look at Cavan, where a climb in sales from 649 cars registered up to September 2013 to 979 cars registered for the same period in 2014 puts it at a 51 per cent increase, almost double the national average.

Behind Cavan we find both Clare and Leitrim, which saw a 47 per cent climb followed by Carlow and Monaghan which each posted a 40 per cent increase in new car sales.

According to Michael Rochford, Managing Director of Motorcheck.ie: “Having seen to a lot of economic commentary refer to a Dublin centric economic recovery we were surprised to find that the new car sales statistics to the end of September 2014 seem to indicate that the economic recovery is touching all parts of the country, with the greatest increases in sales coming from some unexpected places.”

So, does this mean that Dublin is losing is economic power house status? Are the provinces really rising up and taking over? Is the west (and south and east) really awake?

Michéal Collins, an economic analyst with the Nevin Institute, suggests that the reason we’re seeing such disjointed figures is not that Dublin is losing its way, more that the regional economies are recovering from a lower base and skewing the figures.

“We have noted the different pace of recovery across the regions. The job growth figures are most telling and they show job increase on the east coast and some losses, still, on the west coast. That in and of itself is an indicator of a much slower recovery outside Dublin, if any at all. The recovery in employment has not been geographically uniform.”

Sean Barret, both a senator and an economics expert at Trinity College, though thinks that there may be other background reasons driving the greater percentage recoveries.

“There are other possibilities: How about house prices in Dublin are rising so fast that the Dubs have to drive around in old bangers? Or maybe farmers with their own wells use are water tax savings to buy bigger cars?”

The Motorcheck report also suggests that the reason could be something that we've spoken of on these pages recently – that of falling interest in cars amongst younger, urban-dwelling consumers. Those in Dublin may complain and crib about public transport but there's no getting away from the fact that there is more of it in the Dublin area than you'll find in Galway, Cork, Waterford or Limerick. With a general, global trend towards disinterest in cars amongst 18-35-year-olds, perhaps the lower percentage growth in Dublin is merely the first indications that this trend has reached our shores.