Sir, – While it’s correct that right-hand drive production costs will have some effect on Irish car prices (Letters, December 27th), such costs are perhaps less significant than the cost impact of domestic taxes.
In mass-market car manufacturing, economies of scale mean that the additional cost per unit of making a right-hand drive variant is at worst moderate.
Cars, both new and second-hand generally, are cheaper in Britain (and in Japan) than in Ireland, and the primary reason for this is Irish taxation, specifically higher VAT and, of course, vehicle registration tax, which is a protectionist car tax.
Having access to an even larger pool of left-hand drive foreign cars would make little difference, as the pricing bottle-neck derives materially from a domestic fiscal policy choice, not from a lack of supply options. – Yours, etc,
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick,
Co Tyrone.