New car sales at highest since 2000

Sales of new cars rose to 93,319 in the first five months of this year, reversing a trend of declining sales since a high in 2000.

The figures, which were released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) yesterday, also showed imports of second-hand cars to the Republic rose by almost 45 per cent last month, as compared to figures for May last year.

The highest number of new private cars registered last month and categorised by make were Toyota (at 1,969), Volkswagen (1,844), Ford (1,770), Renault ( 1,462), Nissan (1,306) and Opel (1,184). In all, there were 16,153 new private cars registered during May, compared with 15,365 in May 2003.

However, when all new vehicles - including goods vehicles and motorbikes - were taken into account, the increase was smaller, 20,622 vehicles in May 2004 compared with 20,544 in May 2003.

When the registration of imported second-hand vehicles was factored in, the first-time registrations for May 2004 was up 2.9 per cent when compared to 2003.

The CSO statistics also revealed that while most imported vehicles were registered in Dublin - where 48 imported Mercedes and 38 BMWs were registered in May - Donegal also featured highly.

In Donegal in May, 12 imported BMWs were registered as were six Audis, 16 Fords, 16 Hondas and four Mercedes. In all 313 imported private cars were registered in Dublin in May, while the figure for Donegal was 208. Cork city and county had just 184.

During May an additional 17 Mercedes Benz cars were classed as exempt from road taxation and eight Audis and four BMWs. There were 85 Toyotas exempted, 77 Fords, 50 Nissans, and 45 Volkswagens.

"Exempt" vehicles can be divided into four categories - State owned; diplomatic; fire services and disabled drivers.