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Vehicle registration plates of the Republic of Ireland

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This page is about number plates in the Republic of Ireland. For plates in Northern Ireland, see British car number plates
File:07D.jpg
Graphical example of current standard Irish numberplate for County Dublin
File:92 wx 1156.jpg
A number plate for a vehicle registered in 1992 in County Wexford
File:780FZL.gif
Graphical example of pre 1987 standard rear Irish numberplate for County Dublin
File:Irish plate specification.jpg
Illustration of Irish number plate specifications

Registration marks on Number plates in the Republic of Ireland issued since 1987 have the format YY-CC-SSSSSS where the components are:

  • YY — a 2-digit year (e.g. 87 for 1987; 05 for 2005)
  • CC — a 1- or 2-character county identifier (e.g. D for Dublin; SO for Sligo).
  • SSSSSS — a 1- to 6-digit sequence number, starting with the first vehicle registered in the county that year.

Since 1991, the design of the standard Irish number plate has been based on European standard guidelines, with a blue band to the left of the plate containing the 12 stars of the European flag and the country identifier IRL. The rest of the plate has a white background with black characters. Unlike legal requirements in most other European countries, a standard uniform character font is not required. The rules simply require legible black characters, no more than 70 mm high and 36 mm wide, on a white reflective background. The result is that a large variety of perfectly legal font styles may be seen, on either pressed aluminium or acrylic plates, both of which are allowed 1. Despite the rather relaxed lack of a specified font, the hyphen between the lettering must lie between the minimum dimensions of 13mm x 10mm or the maximum dimension of 22mm x 10mm. Also required is the full Irish language name of the county which must be positioned above the identifier. Vehicle owners may be fined if the plate's format does not meet the requirements and will most certainly automatically fail government vehicle testing NCT which the vehicle is required to undergo on a two-yearly basis.

A vehicle's number plate is determined when it is first registered, the county code being taken from the first owner's postal address. Registration remains fixed on the one vehicle until it is de-registered (exported, destroyed, etc), and cannot be transferred to other vehicles.

History

From 1903, the system used in Ireland was part of the original British system of identifiers. This was superseded in the Republic of Ireland in 1987, but remains in use in Northern Ireland.

Each administrative county was allocated a 2-letter code, with plates having formats "CC SSSS", "LCC SSS", "SSSS CC", "SSS LCC" or (currently in Northern Ireland) "LCC SSSS", where CC is the county code, L a sequence letter and SSS/SSSS a sequence number of up 3/4 digits. When all combinations for a county were exhausted, a new 2-letter code was allocated (chiefly to Dublin and Belfast which had the most cars). All codes contained either I or Z, to avoid clashing with other British codes. Originally, plates had white or silver letters on a black background. Later this was changed to black-on-white at the front and black-on-red at the back (black-on-yellow in Northern Ireland).

In 1952, the codes for the City of Dublin and County Dublin were merged. In 1974, the codes for City of Cork and County Cork were merged.

Irish vehicle registration marks under the old scheme could be transferred to Britain for re-registration on other vehicles, even after Irish independence, and even though they could not be re-used within Ireland. The vowel "I" in many combinations made these attractive for collectors. The Kilkenny index "VIP 1" has fetched a record price at auction. Since 1987, such exports have been impossible, even for old-format registrations, although those already exported may still be re-transferred.

The 1987 scheme allocated single-letter codes to the county boroughs (including those shared with counties) and 2-letter codes to the others. Normally these are the initial and final letter of the English-language name of the county (except where duplicates would result). The controversy of using English as the basis led to the addition of the Irish language name on physical plates issued from 1991.

Current implementation

Currently, the Revenue Commissioners, the Irish Government agency responsible for vehicle registration, are planning to add new codes for the administrative counties currently sharing codes. These are expected to be CK (County Cork), GY (County Galway), DR (Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown), FL (Fingal), and SN (South Dublin) respectively;[citation needed] but have not been introduced as of 2007.

Sequence numbers may be reserved on completion of the relevant documents and payment of a fee, although this is rarely done due to high costs involved.

  • Most registration numbers can be reserved, with the exception of the first number of each year issued in Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford as these are reserved for the respective Mayor/Lord Mayor of these cities.[1]

Thus, for example, in the current year 2007, Lord Mayor Councillor Vincent Jackson, the Lord Mayor of Dublin was entitled to receive the registration plate 07-D-1 on his official vehicle.

  • Luxury cars with numeric names often have matching sequence numbers pre-registered by the dealer: for example 06-D-911 on a Porsche 911 or 06-D-750 BMW 750.
  • Dublin radio station FM 104 often register their vehicles with a number sequence ending with "104", e.g. 05-D-38104.

Imported used cars are registered based on year of first registration in their country of original registration rather than year of import.

Vehicles registered to the Irish Defence Forces have plates with silver letters on black background. These do not feature the Irish-language county name; in practice all are registered in Dublin.

There are only two pre-1987 codes still used in the Republic of Ireland.

  • "ZZ", administered by the AA Ireland as agents for the Revenue Commissioners, is given to registrants who are based outside the state and are only going to stay for a period not exceeding one month. The format of the code is ZZ followed by a five digit number.
  • "ZV", which can be selected as an alternative to the current scheme when registering a vehicle older than 30 years for the first time in Ireland.

Current index mark codes

code county or city
C Cork
CE Clare
CN Cavan
CW Carlow
D Dublin
DL Donegal
G Galway
KE Kildare
KK Kilkenny
KY Kerry
L Limerick City
LD Longford
LH Louth
LK Limerick County
LM Leitrim
LS Laois
MH Meath
MN Monaghan
MO Mayo
OY Offaly
RN Roscommon
SO Sligo
TN Tipperary North
TS Tipperary South
W Waterford City
WD Waterford County
WH Westmeath
WX Wexford
WW Wicklow

EU Standardised vehicle registration plates

Main article: European vehicle registration plates

The common EU format was introduced by Council Regulation (EC) No 2411/98 of 3 November 1998 and entered into force on the 11 Nov 1998. It was based on a model registration plate which several member states had introduced, e.g. Ireland 1991, Portugal 1992, and Germany 1994. (This 'common format' is claimed to be a registered design - number 2053070 - registered at the UK Patent office by David and Nansi Mottram in 1995 [2]. No successful challenge has been launched upon the registered design to date.)

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to License plates of Ireland.
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