Almost 83,000 new cars have been sold so far this year, 28% ahead of the same period in 2015.

In March alone, new car registrations were up 14%.

The motor trade is predicting another bumper year, as the economy continues to improve.

However, there's a warning that down the line, we could see a situation where used cars are in negative equity, especially for buyers on finance schemes.

Michael Rochford of Motorcheck.ie says when these vehicles come back for re-sale, they could flood the market: "Used car prices, which have been very high in the last few years due to stock shortages, will begin to slide and will return to normal levels of depreciation that you'd expect when there's ample supply of vehicles to meet the demand out there. What that could mean would be potential negative equity in two or three years time when all these cars come back."