The first six-figure vehicle registration plate, expected to be reached today, will have smaller digits to accommodate the extra number.
Legislation passed last Christmas to shorten the hyphen on registration plates allows the numbers to be made smaller, the Revenue Commissioners said.
The 00-D-100000 plate has been booked for the past seven months by Mr Des Cullen, a car dealer in Rathmines, and will be put on a silver Hyundai Santa Fe. The new four-wheel-drive model will be available in the Republic in December and the model with the six-figure plate would stay at the dealer's garage for some time, Mr Cullen's wife, Ms Dolores Delaney, said.
Yesterday, 99,864 vehicles had been registered in Dublin and with the rate of purchase this year, the Revenue Commissioners expected the figure to go above 100,000 today. "You'd probably notice the difference in size of the numbers on the plate, but it's not illegible," a spokesman for the Revenue Commissioners said.
Last year, 64,352 new cars were registered in Dublin and in 1998, 56,209 were registered. Last year, 174,361 cars were registered throughout the State, in 1998, 145,716 were registered.
While there had been a big increase in new cars registered this year, some 200,000 cars went off the road, Mr Cyril McHugh, chief executive of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry, said. This was partly because of the introduction of the National Car Test, he said.