Mick Clifford: A levy on concrete blocks? We've been here before

Potential legal challenges to the levy may vanish — but they were never the biggest problem with Paschal Donohoe’s plan

The scale of Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe's concrete levy (10%) applied to a narrow subset of the construction industry may make it unworkable. File picture: Oireachtas TV

If at first you don’t succeed… The budget speech on Tuesday threw up but a few surprises, one of which was the announcement of the imposition of a levy of 10% on concrete products to contribute towards redress schemes for defective blocks and pyrite.

Paschal Donohoe estimated that the levy, to be introduced next April, should generate around €80m per annum.