The Society of the Irish Motor Industry says that figures for new cars registered last month are down almost 63% on February 2008. SIMI says that just 8,950 new cars were sold in February compared to 24,119 the same time last year.
The year to date figure at 24,835 is down over 65% on the figure for the first two months of 2008.
SIMI also said that registrations of light commercial vehicles for February showed even steeper falls - down over 83% to 838. This compares to a total of 5,007 new vans being registered the same time last year. The year to date figure at 2,485 is 81.5% down on the first two months of last year.
Heavy vehicle registrations are down over 79% to 111 compared to February 2008 (537) while they are down 72% for the year so far.
SIMI has been pressing Government to take immediate action to help save jobs in the car industry.
