At the crucial 20-day figures milestone, the difference is down to 16.48 percent less registrations.
In addition to the weather difficulties, which stopped many buyers from getting out to showrooms, there are new financial aspects which change the figures.
Dealers in the past were were in the practice of registering cars themselves because they had several months credit for stock from their banks, but many of the institutions which provided such credit are no longer in the business.
In addition, the VRT involved in such registrations is now taken directly from a dealer's account with 48 hours.
The upshot is that dealers are not stocking as many new cars, and also are waiting for customers to actually come in to collect their cars before registering.
According to registrations compiled by Motorcheck.ie, total new car registrations to date in January are 9,226. This compares to 11,047 at the same time last year.
In those figures for 2010 are registration of imported used cars of 1,683 units. These are nearly 51 percent down on the same period last year.
