Official figures show that new car sales made a strong start to the year, rising by 30% in January compared with the same month last year.
The Central Statistics Office said 13,624 new cars were registered in the month, compared with 10,469 in January last year.
January is traditionally the busiest month of the year for car sales. The CSO figures are broadly in line with those released by the motor industry earlier this month. The scrappage scheme - which has been extended until the end of June - has been lifting car sales since its introduction last year.
Of the 13,624 new private cars licensed in January, 27.5% were petrol and 70.6% were diesel. Toyota led the way with 2,503 new cars, followed by Ford (1,642), Volkswagen (1,455) and Renault (1,083).
But the number of new goods vehicles registered in January was down 4.6% from a year earlier to 969.
