The number of new private cars licensed in December 2005 rose by 4.97% from the same time the previous year. New figures from the Central Statistics Office say that a total of 2,134 new cars were licensed in December last year compared with 2,033 the same month in 2004.
In the year 2005, there were a total of 166,373 new private cars licensed up over 11% on the figure for 2004.
The CSO figures also show that first licensing of second hand private cars surged by 46% on the same month last year and jumped by 78.8% in the year to 2005 compared with the previous 12 month period.
New good vehicles licensed increased by 6.7% in the month, while in the year there was a rise of 23.2%.
The most popular brand of new cars licensed last month was Opel, which saw a total of 299 cars sold. It was followed by Nissan (266), Peugeot (208), Toyota (200) and Volkswagen (160).
