Irish Cattle and Sheep Association (ICSA) president Dermot Kelleher has said that the amendments to the concrete levy are welcome and that the levy was a “looney” idea in the first place.
“The 5% concrete levy must be one of the most ill-thought out, farcical policy decisions ever made in a country where we urgently need more houses and where farmers are under pressure to add more slurry storage facilities,” he said.
Minister for Finance Michael McGrath this morning (September 6) announced his intention to bring forward a legislative amendment in the forthcoming Finance Bill to deal with how the levy impacts on the sale of certain precast products.
The minister said that this change will come into effect from January 1, 2024.
A refund scheme will apply for the rest of this year for levies paid before January 1, on pouring concrete for precast products.
Concrete blocks and pouring concrete for use other than in precast products will remain within scope of the levy.
However, Kelleher said the removal of the levy on precast products was an “abject mess”, as it will only come into effect in January.
“It is inevitable that the refund system will take up more civil service hours and therefore cost more than the levy brings in,” he said.
“This just highlights how the levy should never have been applied to readymix concrete in the first place.”
Kelleher added that Minister McGrath needs to “abolish the bill altogether”.
“In recent years, there has been a series of shock announcements in budgets that have been characterised by zero consultation and implemented by ministers who haven’t had time to consider if they are sensible,” he added.
“We saw it with the trebling of stamp duty on commercial property sales which, when announced, it turned out that the minister did not even understand that this would apply to agricultural land sales,” he said.