Irish car registration plates - who hates or loves them?

I like it in that the year, county then serial makes it relatively easy to remember.

I don't like the split year since 131 and I think since the 20s came in those split year plates are downright confusing.

201

202

211

212

221

222

It doesn't jump.out at you like it should and therefore makes it quite difficult to remember a reg in case of emergency etc.

I loved the simplicty of the new plate system when it was first introduced, year, county & sequence number registered. I don't think many other countries had anything that straight forward?

I absolutely hate them since the motor industry forced the Government to allow them to split up the year into two halves. That was the greatest con they ever pulled off and caused a very simple identification system to be screwed up. i.e 19-D-456 became 191 or 192-D-***. I seriously believe it was simply a brain washing exercise so the garages could have two bumper seasons in the one year. Then of course you have the look at me, my car is 222 and your old yoke is 221...

Personally, the split year thing has no baring whatsoever on my decission making when it comes to buying a secondhand veichle.

Originally the single letter counties were only to be used for counties which were also cities so Cork, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Waterford.

Tipperary was originally TN and TS depending if it was north or south region/council, it's now T which is the exception as it's not a city. Kilkenny seems to be a city and then not a city but was not a city when the plates came out in 1987.

There was some mention of the 13 being unlucky too by our friend in Kerry 😂...

Don't like the split year gimmic myself.It was only a a sales rouse thought up by motor dealers and ably abetted by the government to boost sales after mid year when sales slow down.Salesman told me eg, 211,212 mean the same thing.Car has no extra value with a 212 plate.It's still classed the same as a 211 car.One year old.

But why, if it isn’t broken, would you want to fix it? Personally I have no problem with the way the plates are.

I’m not going to get into an argument with you. I personally have no problem with the way they are. What’s wrong with having a county on the number plate?

Im also ok with buying a 2nd hand car and knowing the year it was put on the road.

Anyhow, that’s my tuppence worth. Cheers.

What about the way Irish people get illegal plates made up. . . . . . colours . . . . fonts . . . . .car brands . . . . . ? If you got caught doing it in Europe you'd be nailed up on a cross.

I saw a comment once that a long series of numbers (esp D plates) are more difficult to memorise than a series of letters and numbers like UK plates, and hence more difficult for the Gardai to recall.

I suppose since ANPR its doesn't really matter.

Limerick had both L and LK if I remember correctly. Do you know why? Considering Cork and Galway are bigger counties and Cork also having a bigger city, it didn't seem to make much since to have a limerick city plate and limerick County plate.

The W/WD L/LK etc. was because there was a city tax office and a second one at the other end of the county (Waterford and Limerick both have the administrative capital at the extreme end of the county so for convenience they added another office).

That was due to Limerick having a city and council county

I think the current system is great. Easy to understand the year, county and number of vehicles registered up to that point. There has to be some sort of registration system in place, so why not this one?

If the EU come out with a common system, it would probably have the Country of Origin and some sequence of numbers in it anyway, so what difference would that make?

This is a circular debate anyway. Each country is free to choose whatever way they register vehicles and show that registration (within a defined set of rules, I imagine). Ours is year, county and number. I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future as it works very well and there is no wider public debate, petition or movement to have it changed, like it or not. People have more to worry about than the characters on a piece of plastic or metal on the rear and/or front of their vehicle.

They are still using the old (original) registration system in the North. They never changed over. The rest of the UK left it in 1962-ish.

With the lower population in the North never ran out of regs.

Whatever about the number plates, the fact we’re forced to display a couple of pieces of circular paper on the windscreen to prove we’ve paid for something is beyond archaic. Wish they’d scrap that and move to electronic like the UK.

...and imagine how much is spent administering the whole operation, notifying owners, designing new discs every year, printing them, posting them out etc. Wonder if there are any stats for how much of what's collected goes in collecting the tax?

An even simpler solution, would be to simply abolish the need for motor tax, no technology even needed. Highly unlikely in the current environment though.