Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We have discussed the matters at length, but I make one point that has not been made but was sparked by Deputy Michael McGrath's comment. One could argue the opposite of what the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, is arguing. Somebody might be more likely to make bigger refurbishments or adaptations to his or her house anyway, to use the Minister of State's criteria, because he or she has more money whereas those on the margin are perhaps the ones who are not getting the works done, and it follows that it would be better to bring the threshold down.

I take the point that there is a balance to be struck. One does not want to take the threshold down so far that one also gets routine repairs where there is no extra work being drawn into it. However, many of what could be described as reasonably substantial home improvements would fall between the figures, below €5,000 but above the cost of mere day-to-day repairs. I suspect that works in that category, as against the works of those who have a fair bit of money who have not been hit too badly by the recession and can press ahead with more substantial improvement works to their homes, are the ones most likely not to be done at present. On those grounds, the Minister of State should reconsider, perhaps in the Seanad.

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