The move comes as there is growing pressure on the government to remove tax from safety devices in cars.

The industry has been lobbying hard over the failure to exempt such equipment from VRT and Eddie Murphy, chairman and MD of Ford Ireland, reinforced the point at the launch of the all new Ford Mondeo in Europe during the week.

He called for an urgent change of the government stance on the issue as he revealed that Electronic Stability Control is part of the new car package. ESP compensates for oversteer and understeer and is a major contributing factor to saving lives but adds about 500 to the price of a car when taxes are added.

And there is further good new for motorists . . . the entry level Mondeo, the 1.6 LX petrol, will also come with air conditioning as standard. This is a sweet deal as the price of the new Mondeo is 24,995, only 60 more than the outgoing LX version which did not have either items as standard.

Cruise control is now also standard equipment.

ESP is standard on all the top-selling cars in Sweden and it is also standard equipment on the Ford Focus in that market where safety features are high on the consumer demand list.

In Ireland the tendency is to opt for luxury items.

Recently Ford announced that ESP would be standard on Transit models and the expectation is that it will become a standard fit on Focus models here also.

It is expected that 45% of Mondeo models sold here will come with the 1.6 litre 110 PS output petrol engine but diesel is growing in popularity with sales rising from 18% in all passenger car sold in 2003 to 37% for sales of new cars in the first quarter of 2007.

The Ford MD disclosed that for the first time Mondeo is to get a 1.8 litre turbo-diesel engine . . . the same as the one which has proved so popular in the SMax which delivers 125 PS output. There will also be a 2-litre diesel offering with 130 PS and 140 PS output with the option of a 6-speed automatic transmission.

The flagship petrol engine is the 2.5 litre used in the high performance Focus ST.

This and other top of the range models get two new suspension development devices which are controlled from the cabin and give the driver comfort, normal or sport driving dynamics.

Ford will offer the new car in three body styles . . .

saloon, hatchback and estate. The new Ford is now much bigger. The wheelbase has grown by 96mm, the overall length has stretched by 47mm and it is 120mm wider. The extra interior space stretches into the boot area which is now also larger at 540 litres with seats up and almost 1,500 litres with seats folded.