Number of cars doubles in 16 years

THE number of cars on Irish roads has doubled in the Celtic Tiger years with more than one car for every two adults in the country.

Figures have revealed there are six times as many cars with an engine size of more than 1.7 litres than there were in 1990.

Transport now uses up a third of all energy consumed here.

The public is being warned that car usage cannot continue at the current rate, and we’ll have to “go back to the way we were” by driving smaller, more efficient vehicles.

A report published by Sustainable Energy Ireland yesterday, Energy in Transport, said the amount of fuel used by transport has trebled in 17 years.

It found that more than €5.5 billion was spent on transport fuel, excluding air travel, last year.

Transport was responsible for 34% of Ireland’s carbon emissions, according to the report, making it “higher than any of the other sectors, namely industry, residential and services sectors”.

The report said there are 2.1 million road vehicles in Ireland today, compared with 1m in 1990. Three-quarters of these are privately owned cars while the rest are made up mostly of goods delivery vehicles or buses.

In 1998 the number of private cars exceeded the number of permanently occupied dwellings for the first time in the country’s history.

There are now 528 cars per 1,000 adults, putting our car ownership below that of Britain where the average is 555 per 1,000 and the US where there are 725 cars for every 1,000 people — the highest car ownership rate in the world.

The report also found:

A sixth of cars have an engine size bigger than 1.9 litres.

50% of cars on the road are less than five years old.

17,000km is the average annual mileage.

SEI chief executive David Taylor said: “We are seeing a relentless growth in the average size of cars being purchased. We’re driving more cars and bigger cars and that is clearly not sustainable.

“We as car buyers have to reverse that trend. We need to go back to the way we were by driving smaller, more efficient cars.”

He said “climate change is the most serious issue facing mankind” and a “significant change in car usage is needed” to stop further destruction to our planet.

He said a provision in Budget 2008 for basing Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) on carbon emissions rather than engine size will result in a change in purchasing behaviour.

“The VRT reforms establish a link between what we as consumers are doing and the climate change issue,” he said.

There is no data on the contribution of the airline industry to carbon emissions, but the report said air travels has more than trebled since 1990 when 7.8m passengers travelled through Irish airports compared to 27.8m last year.