Newly published figures have shown that over 37,000 cars failed the NCT because of defects.
According to The Irish Mirror newspaper, the newly published figures showed that a total of 37,191 cars were deemed unsafe by inspectors in 2018.
The figures which also show that of 1,343,794 that underwent the test a total of 661,743 passed the test, whilst 644,860 failed.
It is understood the sharp increase in failures came as new EU rules introduced in 2018 had different standards when it came to classifying a defect.
Previous figures show that only 5,000 cars failed the NCT test in 2017.