32The trend of Irish motorists importing second-hand cars from the UK has increased to the extent that the number of registrations of imported cars is expected to exceed new car sales in Ireland for the first time ever in 2019., published on Monday by the Marketing Institute of Ireland and UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, indicate that car sales are continuing to decrease in Ireland, while the number of cars being imported from the UK continues to rise.
This, the CMM indicates, was influenced by sterling’s falling value, which made imported cars more affordable. According to the CMM, there is an average shortfall of €6,000 between taxation on each new car sale compared to tax revenues for each imported vehicle registration .At its peak in 2007, before the economic crash, the new car market topped 180,000, with three times as many new cars sold as imported second-hand sales .