10% levy on concrete to fund defective homes redress

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Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Defective Concrete Products Levy​

Earlier this year the government agreed a comprehensive redress scheme for those home owners who have been affected by the issue of defective products used in the building of their homes.
This redress scheme comes with a significant cost and therefore, I am bringing forward a levy on concrete blocks, pouring concrete and certain other concrete products.
The levy is expected to raise €80 million annually and will be applied from the 3rd of April 2023 at a rate of 10 per cent.
 
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I wonder what proportion of the cost of a new house is the cost of concrete?

If the cost of building is €200k, and say the cost of Concrete is 10% or €20k , so the additional cost would be €2k.

Brendan
 
You could double that...blocks, plastering, roof tiles, ground works supplies could all come under this levy? Are sand and gravel included in the levy which caused the original mica issue?
And if you make your own pouring concrete on site how does that work. Tell you Government you made10 sq metre today...yeah right.
 
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Brendan Burgess said:
I am bringing forward a levy on concrete blocks, pouring concrete and certain other concrete products.
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It seems to be just concrete products.

I spoke to a retired Quantity Surveyor and he thought that the cost of concrete in a house for a FTB would be quite small. Maybe less than €20,000. But he wasn't sure.

I would expect that the House Building spokespeople will give us a calculation at some stage.

Brendan
 
I wonder if this is also an environmental measure in disguise.

Concrete has an enormous carbon footprint whereas timber frame houses actually capture carbon.
 
arbitron said:
I wonder if this is also an environmental measure in disguise.

Concrete has an enormous carbon footprint whereas timber frame houses actually capture carbon.
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A lot of timber frame being used now. It's a lot easier. Everything made in the factory and then put in place. Windows can go in almost at the same time and the place is sealed. As opposed to block work which takes longer and is weather dependent. Plus the cost of concrete has gone through the roof.

...but in saying that, there has been massive costs to the State on repairing defect homes. This levy is an insurance premium against future defects.
 
Steven Barrett said:
This levy is an insurance premium against future defects.
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No it's not.

It's a pure nonsense optical measure so the government can say the industry is paying for its mistakes.

It will not pay a material share of the (astronomical) redress costs nor will it incentivise the quarries today to invest more in quality control.

The risk of this happening again can only be reduced by better supervision of the industry.
 
Is the thinking here to add a bit of moral hazard? if the concrete industry provides bad concrete they'll collectively be the ones to suffer for it.
 
DazedInPontoon said:
Is the thinking here to add a bit of moral hazard? if the concrete industry provides bad concrete they'll collectively be the ones to suffer for it.
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But the industry doesn't suffer very much because concrete is a necessary product and people are going to pay whatever the price is.

A bit like the levies on insurance over the years haven't caused me to insure my house for less. It's not a levy on industry, it's a levy on the customer.
 
The issue is that the companies responsible for producing the defective materials should have been pursued, along with their insurers. It's not like they don't know who produced the dodgy concrete.
 
10% on concrete might be just enough to start a debate and movement to move to alternatives. If that gets traction the industry will pay by its possible demise.
 
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