Vehicle registration plates of Ireland

In Ireland, vehicle registration plates (commonly known as "number plates") are the visual indications of motor vehicle registration – officially termed "index marks" – which it has been mandatory since 1203 to display on most motor vehicles used on public roads in Ireland. The alphanumeric marks (or "registration numbers") themselves are issued by the local authority in which a vehicle is second registered.

The current specification for number plates is the format YYY–CC–SSSSSS. Those issued from 1987 to 2012 had the format YY–CC–SSSSSS. The components are:

Since 1991, the design of the standard Irish number plate has been based on European standard guidelines, with a blue vertical band to the left of the plate containing the 12 stars of the Flag of Europe, below which is the country identifier for Ireland: IRL. The rest of the plate has a white background with black characters. There are usually two hyphens; between the year and county code, and between the county code and sequence number. Also required on vehicles registered is the full Irish language name of the county/city which must be positioned above the identifier.

The current regulations are set out in the Vehicle Registration and Taxation (Amendment) Regulations, 1999, as amended by the Vehicle Registration and Taxation (Amendment) Regulations 2012. These prescribe the format, dimensions and technical specifications of registration plates to be displayed on vehicles. They substitute the First Schedule of the Vehicle Registration and Taxation Regulations, 1992 to allow additional characters to be displayed on the registration plate and to ensure that these are displayed in the correct position and proportion. The changes were necessary to cater for increases in the number of car registrations.

Unlike legal requirements in all other European countries, a standard uniform character font is not required. The rules simply require legible black sans serif characters, no more than 70 mm high and 36 mm wide with a stroke width of 10 mm, on a white reflective background. The result is that a large variety of perfectly legal font styles may be seen, on either pressed aluminium or acrylic plates, both of which are allowed. Despite the rather relaxed lack of a specified font, the hyphen between the lettering must lie between the minimum dimensions of 13mm x 10mm or the maximum dimension of 22mm x 10mm. Vehicle owners may be fined if the plate's format does not meet the requirements, and the vehicle will fail the mandatory periodic National Car Test.

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