Volkswagen remains the most popular brand for new car sales here, despite the emissions scandal.

New figures from the Central Statistics Office reveal that almost 1,874 cars were licensed last month, almost 20% more than in November 2014.

However there was a drop of 6.5% in the number of imported cars being licenced.

In all, 120,263 cars were licensed in the first 11 months of this year, an increase of 31.5% when compared to 2014. 71% of those registered were diesel-fuelled.

Volkswagen (204) was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in November, followed by Opel (187), Ford (166), BMW (152) and Renault (130). Together these five makes represent 44.8% of all new private cars licensed.

Volkswagen's share of new sales has increased slightly from 10.4% to 10.9%, despite the emission-rigging scandal which resulted in the resignation of the company's CEO and saw one-third of its value wiped off.