The president of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry Eddie Murphy has confirmed that the industry is calling on the Government to extend the Car Scrappage Scheme.
While the scheme runs out at the end of the year, Mr Murphy outlined the potential benefits of extending it into next year. At the start of this year SIMI predicted that 10,000 cars would be sold under the scheme. Figures released today show that over 10,400 cars have been processed up until the end of July.
“We also anticipated that around 70,000 cars would be sold for the whole of this year, with the help of scrappage,” Mr Murphy said. “Today we’re already in excess of 75,000 and we predict that we’ll sell closer to 85,000 for the year, an increase of nearly 50 per cent on last year. Undeniably scrappage has been a success.
“Clearly Government, the industry, and consumers have all benefitted from the scheme,” he added. “However, perhaps the greatest beneficiaries have been the thousands of employees in our sector whose jobs have been secured thanks to the impact of scrappage. Unfortunately we have seen some further job losses in our sector this year but not nearly as many as last year. We have also seen some recruitment by members so the overall picture is one of stability in the level of employment overall.”
He added that the improvement in new car sales this year has had a very positive impact in terms of consumer sentiment and would be very damaging if this were to fall back next year.
“An extension of scrappage into the peak buying season in the early part of next year would be hugely beneficial,” the SIMI president concluded.
