VRT for travelling spouse

[afishyfish]

Hey all,
I was hoping to get some advice.
My wife and I live seperately. I live in Dublin and she lives in Tyrone. We're not seperated but she works there and I work here. It's not ideal but we can't afford for either of us to give up our jobs. They're not easy to come by these days.
So for now, we live seperately and visit each other as often as we can.
Problem is, she was stopped by customs on her way to work early this morning after spending the weekend in Dublin. She was issued with a notice of 7 days to register her vehicle in the Republic. She was warned that failure to do so would result in the car being confiscated.
I've contacted the customs official who issued the notice, and gone down to the vro (vehicle registration office) in Santry to state our case. But it's like talking to robots. They just can't see the bigger picture and won't budge an inch from their narrow minded little ways.
You see, their legislation states that a person is resident if:

if your occupational ties were in a different country from your personal ties then the country of your personal ties is taken as your normal residence if you returned there regularly.

By that logic, I should have to register my car in the North as thats where my personal ties are and I regularly visit on my days off work.

And if she were to register her car here; what happens when the northern Ireland customs department stops her and insists that the car is in the north 80%+ of the time, and is liable for northern Irish road tax?

Does she have to pay that too?

Like I said, I tried explaining this but I may as well have been talking to a wall.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

It may also be relevant that she was born in the UK and has always been a resident there. The car was purchased in Omagh around 2005.
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[VRT.ie]

Apologies for delayed reply

The key thing I believe you need to convey is that your wife has stronger personal ties in the south than the north and that your wife is not in the north only for work (if in fact this is true, I am not suggesting making false claims). So areas I can think of that would help....
proving your wife is a northern ireland native (if she is.) and showing proving her family ties there and trying to show they are stronger than her southern ties.

anyway of conveying that your family home is in the north and not in dublin?

As much proof as possible of the fact your wife lives in the north with years and spends most of her time there: So proof of work, utility bills, receipts, also any receipts relating to the car, maybe fuel garage etc.


Hopefully this might help you plead your case better.