The number of new cars licensed rose by nearly a quarter (23.9%) in the first half of the year, according to data from the Central Statistics Office.
97,490 cars were licensed between January and June, up 18,830 on the same period last year.
The number of new cars licensed during each month so far in 2016 has been higher than for the corresponding months last year.
The number of used imported cars licensed increased by 25% to over 30,000 for the first six months of the year, compared with the corresponding period in 2015.
During June 4,143 new private cars were licensed for the first time, an increase of 5.6% compared with the same month last year, while 5,459 used imported cars were licensed during the period, representing an increase of 45% on the same month last year.
The CSO figures also show Volkswagen (10,593) was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in the first half of 2016, followed by Toyota (10,384), Hyundai (9,864), Ford (9,631), and Nissan (8,159).
Together these five makes represent 49.9% of all new private cars licensed during the period.
In the first half of 2016, seven out of every ten (70.3%) new private cars licensed were diesel fuelled, while 96.3% of new private cars licensed in the same period were in the A/B CO2 emissions bands.
There was a 10.1% increase in the number of new goods vehicles licensed in June 2016.
