New car sales in Ireland reached 109,960 in July - making 2015 the first year that sales have passed 100,000 since 2008.

27,633 cars were registered in July as 152 licence plates were released, this is an increase of 48 percent on the same month in 2014.

Volkswagen has remained Ireland's favourite car brand, 13,491 of them have been sold - this represents 12.27 percent of the total market.

It is followed by Toyota which made up 10.66 of new car sales and Ford and Hyundai, both brands account for 9.74 percent of sales.

There are more electric cars being sold, but they remain rare, only 398 have been registered so far in 2015. Diesel cars have increased in popularity, making up almost 30 percent of sales. 

VW Golfs have remained the highest-selling model - 4,860 have been registered across the first 7 months of the year.

The next most popular cars are the Ford Focus and the Nissan Qashqai.