New Car sales up 5.1%

The Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) today released figures for new car sales for September.

New cars sold last month (5,769) was 6.12% down on September 2006 (6,145), while sales for the first nine months of the year (180,837) were 5.1% up on the same period in 2006 (172,052).

Light Commercial Vehicle sales for the first nine months of 2007 (40,597) are up 10.40% on the same period last year (36,773) while Heavy Vehicle sales are down 4.66% (5,036) up to end of September 2007 compared to the same period in 2006 (5,282).

"The Minister for Finance should take all motor-related taxation into account examining how best to achieve a reduction in CO2 emissions," said SIMI CEO, Cyril McHugh, commenting on the recently submitted SIMI pre-Budget Submission 2008.

"Increasing ownership taxes such as VRT could well be counter-productive, leading to an increase in CO2 rather than a reduction, as the high cost of purchase will push customers into buying older, bigger used imports with much higher emission levels.

"Most environmentalists agree that usage taxation rather than ownership taxes are more effective in achieving reductions in emissions."