The number of tractors which were licenced for the first time in January 2021 was up on the same month last year, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

A total of 258 new tractors were licensed for the first time last month, the CSO figures show.

This is an increase of 11 on the 247 tractors registered for the first time in January 2020.

AGCO MF Massey Ferguson

However, it is down some 34 machines on the 292 figure recorded in January 2019.

On the other hand, the number of used (imported) tractors registered for the first time in Ireland last month was up more than 50% on both January 2020 and January 2019.

Some 367 used tractors were registered in January 2021; this is a considerable increase on both January 2020, when 225 machines were registered, and January 2019, which recorded an equivalent figure of 227.

On a wider scale, once again, tractors were the exception rather than the norm in terms of vehicles licensed for the first time in January; a total of 19,518 new vehicles were registered last month – down about 5,000 on the 24,545 vehicles registered in the first month of 2020.

The bulk of these were of course new private cars – some 16,948 new cars were registered last month. This is down well on the 20,665 new cars licensed in January last year.

Turning to used (imported) vehicle registrations, overall there were 29,808 of these recorded in January. This is down on 34,577 registrations in January 2020.

However, unlike new car sales, the registration of used private cars was actually up slightly on the same month last year – 8,126 used cars were registered last month, compared to 7,683 in January 2020.

In other notable stats, Toyota (2,824) was the most popular make of new private car licensed followed by Hyundai (1,901), Ford (1,751), Volkswagen (1,303) and Skoda (1,277).

Together these five makes represent 53.4% of all new private cars licensed in January 2021.

In January 2021, 34.2% of new private cars licensed were diesel, compared with 41.0% in the same period in 2020. Of new private cars licensed in the same period, 80.5% were in the A/B CO2 emissions bands.