Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland for its analysis of the impact of the concrete levy. Mr. James went much further in his opening statement, if he does not mind me saying that. He suggested that the Government will be challenged in terms of meeting its targets, that it has missed targets and that we would need to be reaching 45,000 by the end of the decade. He made it very clear that costs need to be pushed down and this is exactly the opposite of what needs to happen. This was a very strong statement and I will invite Mr. James to elaborate on it in a moment.

We know there was a dispute in terms of the costs. The Department will be here later on and it will try to tell this committee that it can be as low as €400 for a three bedroom semi-detached house. However, SCSI has suggested that it would be about €1,200. It all depends how things are counted. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland is only looking at the hard cost element, is that correct? That is €1,200, excluding soft costs.