The number of new private cars licensed last month was up over 38% on August 2014 figures, according to the Central Statistics Office.

The figures from the CSO show that 8,572 new private cars were licensed for the first time in August, meaning that the total number of new private cars licensed has surpassed 100,000 in the first eight months of 2015

It’s the first time since 2008 that this figure had been reached in any year.

The data shows that in the first eight months of this year 108,522 new private cars were licensed. This is an increase of over 31% from the same time last year.

Volkswagen (1,112) was the most popular make of new private cars licensed in August, followed by Toyota (857), Ford (834), Nissan (766) and Hyundai (631). Together these five makes represent just under half (49.0%) of all new private cars licensed.

The introduction of the dual plate system in 2013 has now seen car sales spread more evenly throughout the year.

The figures also show that there was a 24.3% increase in the number of new goods vehicles licensed in August.

Also reflecting it’s beneficial tax status so far this year seven out of every ten new private cars licensed were diesel, while 95.5% of new private cars licensed in the same period were in the A/B CO₂ emissions bands.

One metric that fell from the same time last year was the number of imported cars that were licensed. There was a fall of 14.3% on August last year.