THE NUMBER OF uninsured private vehicles on Irish roads has almost halved following the introduction of the new Irish Motor Insurance Database, aimed at assisting gardaí in detecting uninsured drivers.

According to research conducted by the Motor Insurers’ Bureau of Ireland (MIBI), private uninsured vehicles represented 4.2% of the overall private fleet across the Republic of Ireland in 2024, an almost 50% reduction from when the same analysis was undertaken for 2022 and the percentage total stood at 8.3%.

The MIBI was established to compensate victims of road traffic accidents caused by uninsured and unidentified vehicles. They are responsible for the ongoing management of the new database, which was developed in conjunction with the Department of Transport, An Garda Síochána, Insurance Ireland and the wider insurance sector.

In 2024 the MIBI found there were a total of 101,881 uninsured private vehicles within the overall total of 2.4 million. By comparison, in 2022 the number of uninsured private vehicles stood at 187,803 out of a total of 2.25 million.

That’s a drop from 1 in every 12 in 2022, to 1 in every 25 last year.

“This system allows Gardaí to see in seconds if a vehicle is uninsured or has not been added to the database, allowing them to act quickly in apprehending any offenders,” said David Fitzgerald, CEO of the MIBI.

He said the firgures are encouraging but that more work needs to be done to ensure more commercial vehicles are insured.

“This is particularly apparent in the data for commercial vehicles, where we see a higher proportion of vehicles that are either uninsured or not uploaded to the National Fleet Database by their fleet owners or motor traders.

“The fleet data is now being used by Gardaí across the frontlines and given the high number of fleet or other commercial vehicles which are not fulfilling their legal motor insurance obligations we anticipate there is likely to be a significant number of offenders identified and apprehended,” said Fitzgerald.

“Given these developments, we would encourage any fleet owners or motor traders who have yet to add all their vehicle details to the database to act now. Otherwise they can expect to have their vehicles stopped and potentially seized by the Gardaí in the months ahead.”