Calls for a change to Ireland's registration plate system have fallen on deaf ears, writes Paddy Comyn
THE MOTOR industry is calling for a change to the current registration system to allow for a greater spread of new-car sales throughout the year.
For years, industry leaders have been saying that the problem of new-car sales predominating in the first three to six months of the year puts pressure on their business. It also leads to a degree of “keeping up with the Joneses” that existed during the heydays of the Celtic Tiger.
Anecdotal stories abound in the industry about customers who barely knew the model they drove but arrived on forecourts with the primary goal of securing the latest registration plate for that year and if necessary have a car attached. It was yet another symbol of excess in society at the time, but it was a great boon for the industry.
Times have changed however, and there was evidence last year of people actually shying away from a new car because it carried the year of purchase so prominently.
Sacrificing these ego-pruchases in place of addressing the wider issue of a market dominated by sales in the early part of the year has taken precedence.
According to figures from Society of the Irish Motor Industry (Simi), 54 per cent of new cars are sold in the first three months of the year, 70 per cent in the first six months.
Eddie Murphy, managing director of Ford Ireland, says the registration plate is easy to understand, but does present its own problems. “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.”
Murphy adds that, for much the same reasons, there is also an issue with the National Car Test. “The NCT 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,” says Murphy.
Applus, the company operating the NCT, agrees. An Applus spokesperson said the company would be supportive of a change to the system, “as it would spread the NCT Tests more evenly across the year”.
David Baddeley, managing director of Volvo Cars Ireland, would welcome a plate change but doesn’t think it is high on the list of priorities. “We have a lot of other issues as a country and as an industry to deal with, but I do think, long-term, it is a desirable ambition,” he says.
“The primary driver for it should be the customer. The way we have things set up at the moment – with 25 per cent of sales in the first month and 50 per cent of the sales in the first quarter – puts a huge strain on the whole system. We can deal with that strain, but the loser is the customer because they cannot get the same level of service, be it sales or after-sales, in January as they would in August or October.
“There is a cost that comes with having that capacity requirement in January or quarter one, and the consumer pays for that. If the registration process was more even, then I think the consumer would win out in terms of taking costs out of the industry that can be passed on to the customer and terms of the level of customer service.”
However, according to those running the car registration system in Ireland, there are no plans to look at changing the current system, which has been in place for 23 years. A spokesperson for the Revenue Commissioners effectively closed the door on there being any change in the immediate future, saying: “There is no plans, at present, to review to the current registration system.”
Then there are the other stakeholders, including the Garda. While they wouldn’t officially comment, it’s believed that gardaí are strongly resistant to any change as the current system is easy for identifying cars.
Similarly car buyers like the transparency of the current plate system. The industry is going to have a hard slog ahead it it wants to change minds on plates.
Plate expectations: What happens in the rest of Europe:
HOW IT IS done in other countries? It seems for a quick perusal that few other systems are as straightforward as our own.
Sweden, Hungary, Finland and Malta use a combination of three letters and three digits.
In Sweden, for example, the three letters have no connection with the geographic location, although the last digit shows what month the car must undergo vehicle inspection. The registration stays with the vehicle and remains unchanged.In Finland, the combination of letters and numbers has no connection with the geographic location. In Hungary the first of the three letters refers to a sequence, which started with AAA in 1990. In Malta, the letters are randomly chosen apart from the first letter, which shows in which month the vehicle’s annual tax disc is due for renewal.
German car number plates show the place where the car carrying them is registered. Whenever German citizens change their main place of residence in Germany, or buy a new car, they are required to buy new number plates.
Number plates can be bought which are valid all year round or between two to 11 months within any 12 months. This allows changing between summer and winter cars, such as a convertible and a saloon without wasting time and money for de-registering and re-registering. If a car is sold to someone else permanently, but stays within the same city or region, the number may stay the same. Registration fees however are applied for name changes in the official car papers.
Since October 2009, all French vehicle registration plates are issued using the XX-NNN-ZZ format, which was introduced in Italy in 1994. These consist of two letters, three numbers and then two letters. In Italy, there is a similar format to France, but here the first plate is AA 000 AA, followed by AA 001 AA up until AA 999 AA. This is then followed by AA 000 AB up until AA 999 AB etc. The three-digit number changes first, then the letters from right to left. Spain uses four digits followed by three consonant letters. The letter code is sequential, but letters A, E, I, O and U are not used. So it starts with BBB to DZZ, FBB to HZZ, JBB to NZZ, PBB to PZZ, RBB to TZZ and VBB to ZZZ and the numbers go from 0000 to 9999. There is no way of telling where the car was registered but the letter code gives a rough idea of when the car was registered.
In Britain the current system consists of the first two letters, which are an area code. A two-digit age identifier changes twice a year, in March and September. The code is either the last two digits of the year itself if issued between March and August or else has a 50 added to that value if issued between September and February the following year.