Block levy a ‘stab in the back’ say mica activists
MICA campaigners have labelled the new 10% levy on concrete blocks a ‘stab in the back’, but the Government insists that it will not be rowing back on the measure.
The levy, announced as part of Budget 2023, is expected to raise around €80million a year, which will go towards the €2.7billion redress scheme for homeowners affected by the defective mica blocks.
But the move has been criticised over fears it will drive up house prices, with the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) warning it could add up to €4,000 to the cost of a new home.
Coalition TDs have called for the measure to be scrapped or delayed, but senior Government figures insisted it will go ahead.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, Paddy Diver, one of the leading activists in the mica campaign, said that the new levy was a ‘stab in the back’ for affected homeowners, adding that it should be postponed due to rising prices.
If it is not postponed, however, he said that homeowners whose dwellings were built with defective mica blocks should be exempt. ‘It is a knot, tightening against us again,’ he explained.
‘A 10% levy is going to cost an ordinary homeowner between €2,000 to €4,000 per person.
‘The [redress] scheme as it is not fit for purpose and then those curveballs now of a 10% levy.’
He added: ‘I think it would need to be postponed, not just for the mica homeowners but for the housing crisis in this country.
‘Whenever inflation has gone through the roof, the last thing that the Government should be doing is adding a 10% levy. It makes no sense whatsoever.’
However, Taoiseach Micheál Martin dismissed campaigners’ concerns yesterday, telling the Mail the move was not going to ‘affect them to any greater or less[er] extent’. ‘The resources we will be allocating to the mica situation will be truly comprehensive right across the board,’ he added.
Speaking in Cavan yesterday, Mr Martin also said that it was decided that a levy would be put in place last November when the Cabinet signed off on the Defective Blocks Scheme. He warned that the cost of remediating homes affected by mica, pyrite and other defective materials could be between €4.5 billion and €6 billion. Some €2.8 billion could be needed to address the mica issue alone. A spokesperson for Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien said that he is ‘cognisant of the current inflationary pressures on the construction sector but is confident this measure will not cause any disproportionate increase’. Speaking in the Dáil yesterday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar ruled out abandoning the levy, stating that the ‘cost has to be borne, in the round, by society’.