Hi Steve, thanks for the advice.
Tried that also and this was their reply
"Please be advised a Certificate of Conformity (CoC) is not available for vehicles that have been manufactured for countries outside the EU; instead, you will need to obtain a statement of compliance from the country of origin. Japan."
not a whole load of use to me as it's nearly impossible for me to get in contact with audi japan.
and even if I did, and managed to get some sort of comparable certificate, i just found out that the dealer in dublin submitted the original export certificate to the Irish revenue to register the vehicle. I contacted the Irish revenue and they said they only keep the export certificates for 6 months before disposing of them. Their advice was to contact the Japanese vehicles revenue service...
absolute madness.
It's a mess folks. Only reasonable option now for me is to sell the audi down in ireland and use the money to buy 1 up here 😩 as can't get it registered. Crazy!