Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 42:

In page 119, line 31, to delete "amended-" down to and including line 39, to delete pages 120 to 125, and to delete lines 1 to 11 in page 126, and substitute "repealed.".

This amendment is to repeal the concrete products levy. This levy was introduced by the Minister's predecessor. The argument was that it was to offset the costs relating to defective concrete blocks in my constituency and elsewhere. In my view, it is not required. We are well aware of the fiscal position in terms of some of the surpluses we have that could fund this measure appropriately. It is not needed to raise revenue to fund this scheme; that is the first point. However, that is not the issue here. The most important point is that at a time when house prices are at the levels they are, when so many people are locked out of home ownership that many people are losing hope in that regard, and as I said, since this Government took office average house prices have increased by €70,000, what we need to do and what public policy needs to be about is to reduce the cost of building homes. This policy flies in the face of that. This policy places a charge on concrete products and that charge is borne by those purchasing homes. The ESRI said previously the burden of this levy will fall on residents of newly built homes, not to mention the financial implications it will have on those trying to remediate affected properties.

The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, SCSI, has said, given the shortage of construction workers, spiralling construction costs and rising interest rates, it is vital that the Government does everything possible to drive down construction costs. Some measures have been taken. In earlier sections there was mention of water charges, development charges and so on. However, this one operates in the other way. It actually increases the cost of building a typical three-bedroom semi-detached house. It was suggested it would put €1,200 onto the cost of that. However, that figure was based on costs at the time when this levy was first legislated for, in November 2021. According to the CSO the price of cement has increased since by 37%, ready-mix mortar and concrete have increased by 38%, and concrete blocks and bricks have increased by 30%. Since the SCSI gave us the estimate of €1,200 we have seen cement, ready-mix mortar and concrete blocks go up by about 13%, 14% and 15% per item.

It makes no sense that we would be putting in place a house-building tax at a time when we should be trying to reduce the cost of building homes and trying to keep homes affordable for people. I understand the motivation in terms of sending a signal that we are making an investment in remediating defective homes and therefore we are offsetting it with this measure. We have done stuff like that, for example, in relation to insurance with the insurance levy. It is not required in this case. It is a one-off cost and we have the resources to meet these costs. Why would we do this at a time when it is pushing up house prices, when all of the Government should be looking in the opposite direction? This is an amendment that will immediately reduce the cost of building a home by probably €1,500 at this point in time. As finance Minister, I would immediately abolish this levy and I would do it without delay.

There are other issues that I will raise in relation to the levy. I am conscious that the Minister did not deal with the Finance Bill last year. It was pointed out very clearly by me to the then Minister that this levy did capture precast concrete products. Yet, he went ahead with it, the Finance Bill was guillotined and we have the situation we have now. I think I concluded the session by saying that other serious defects in relation to the concrete levy will come to pass. The Revenue Commissioners have confirmed to me that the definition of "concrete" within the legislation does not meet what the intended definition requires, namely, that it would capture autoclaved aerated concrete. Autoclaved aerated concrete does not have coarse aggregate in it. By definition, it does not. It is arguable whether it actually contains fine aggregate. There is no definition in this legislation as to what fine aggregate contains, but statutory instruments in the past have dealt with the sieve test that would include fine aggregate. The sand that would be included in autoclaved aerated concrete products is ground down to a pulp. It almost becomes a liquid in its essence. That is the unique feature of autoclaved aerated concrete products; they are so fine that they have those characteristics in terms of being lightweight, thermal energy-efficient and so forth. We have a situation now where those products were not legally chargeable during the course of this year, along with the issue of the precast concrete. It is a good example of why we should not guillotine legislation. Points were being made and now the Minister has to come forward a year later to change the definition of "concrete" in the legislation to "fine or coarse" as opposed to "fine and coarse", to change the legislation to ensure precast concrete products are excluded, and to introduce a rebate scheme. I make those points genuinely in relation to that. As I said, there are questions in terms of the aggregate that is contained in the products.

The core part of this amendment is about not increasing house prices. Let us implement a policy that will reduce house prices. I ask the Minister to accept this amendment and scrap the concrete products levy. It is not required, it is punitive on home-building and it makes no sense whatsoever in the context we are in. It should be got rid of. I genuinely say that as a Minister who is coming in from a different party - I know he is from the same Government that collectively signed off on this - he needs to look at it again. I genuinely say this. If there was a change of government, one of the first things I would do would be to get rid of this levy, because it would have an impact on reducing house prices.