Michael McAleer answers your queries
From Michael Turnbull:
I'm an Irish citizen working as a consultant on contract in Ireland. My wife, Irish, and I have bought a place in the south of France where we intend to spend a great deal of our time. We are considering buying a vehicle in France and registering it there. When in Ireland we use our Irish-registered car. How can we avoid having to re-register the French vehicle in Ireland?
Regulations centre on the Revenue Commissioners' definition of "normal residence". You need to be able to prove that your "normal residence" is outside the state (you spend at least 185 days a year at this other address) because of personal or occupational ties. As you work for an Irish firm you would not qualify under occupational ties. So it's down to the case for personal ties with your French address.
Personal ties means that your immediate family doesn't live in Ireland and you live at a foreign address for 186 days of the year. In your case, because your wife travels with you and spends the same time abroad, there is a case for claiming that your "normal residence" during that time is in France.
Our best advice is to contact the VRT Exemption Section in Bridge End, Co Donegal, and state your case. Alternatively, if you can locate safe parking for the car near the French port, perhaps you could car swap, using your Irish car while in Ireland and the French vehicle in France. Certainly, if you can buy the car in France and register it there, you may save up to half the price. It's worth making that call.
From Mick McNamara:
As a lover of trivia and a person who spends a lot of time on the road, I have used number plates as a way of passing the time. I can recognise most European plates even from the front. I was interested in your comments regarding national systems.
The real reason I write is concerning your comments about the excellence of our system. From an ergonomic viewpoint it's very poor if the aim is to aid memorising and this was stated in the original discussion document. People cannot remember over about five characters.
The second poor design point is that another stated reason for the current system was to give a locator marker. This is all right in France or other countries where you change the plate when the car moves to another location. Here, however, a D may actually be from Kerry or Donegal.
"Excellence" was not quite what we had in mind when describing the current system, but it's better than the cryptic British system.
From Colm Donoghue, Dublin:
Do you know if I need an IRL sticker on my boot now that there's the IRL on my number plates under the European flag?
Irish motorists were never required to carry IRL identity stickers on their cars. The only reason for doing so was patriotism, to fly the flag when abroad and show others that Irish people could drive on the other side of the road - and, somewhat linked, to warn locals that the driver wasn't used to being on that side of the road and might deserve extra consideration.
We're not sure if there were requirements in other states, such as Britain with its GB, but we presume the same situation existed, and that the stickers were merely patriotic symbols of identity.