I ask the Taoiseach to scrap the Government's concrete block levy. The proposal is flawed and will make the housing crisis even worse. The Taoiseach says the levy is to ensure that industry contributes to redress schemes for defective blocks and pyrite. However, the reality is that this is not a levy on the industry at all. The Government's scheme is really a levy on those desperately seeking to buy or build a home, because companies will simply factor it in. They will pass on the increase to customers and it will inevitably push up prices that, as the Taoiseach is aware, have already soared beyond their Celtic tiger peak. The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland has warned that the levy could increase the price of a home by an eye-watering €4,000. Incredibly, it will also force homeowners with defective blocks in Mayo, Donegal, Clare and Limerick to pay even more to fix their homes, which is crazy.

We are in the middle of an unprecedented housing disaster. For so many, affordability is a pipe dream and now the Government's levy will hit ordinary people in the pocket while they struggle with sky-high housing costs. Taoiseach, imagine for a moment that you were a member of the generation locked out of home ownership - dealing with extortionate rent so you cannot save for a deposit, with a historic lack of supply pushing up house prices and with the financial muscle of cuckoo funds sending those prices skyrocketing further - and then you hear that the Government, which should be working to get house prices down, is going to introduce a measure that will add thousands of euro to the price of a home. Imagine that. Taoiseach, imagine you were a first-time buyer who, after scrimping and scraping for years, was finally able to afford a home and then the Government comes along with this levy to make it harder again, or that you were one of those living in a house with defective blocks which is crumbling all around you while you have been crying out for a credible and fair remediation scheme, or that you were one of those who bought an apartment, duplex or other home riddled with Celtic tiger era fire safety defects and you have been left with no scheme at all. Could the Government honestly look any of those people in the eye and tell them that the levy is about them? It is a levy that puts the burden and pain on ordinary home buyers instead of where it belongs - on the banks, the profits of big developers and those responsible for defects. Ardóidh tobhach an Rialtais ar bhloic choincréite praghsanna tithe. Cuirfear ar aghaidh chuig gnáthcheannaitheoirí tí é. Ba cheart é a scriosadh agus tobhach atá dírithe ar na bainc, na forbróirí móra agus iad siúd atá freagrach as na bloic lochtacha a chur ina áit.

Sinn Féin has tabled a motion before the Dáil tonight to correct this mess. I ask all Deputies to support it but it really should not have to go to a vote.

I ask the Taoiseach to do the right thing. It is very clear from the reaction on the Government benches that there is a realisation that this levy, as constructed, is not the way forward. I ask the Government to scrap the concrete block levy now and replace it with a measure that will put the burden on those responsible for defects and not on the shoulders of those struggling to buy or to build a home.

I thank the Deputy for her contribution. When George Orwell wrote his great novel, 1984, he talked about the party’s emphasis on doublethink. Describing it, he explains that party members have “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them”. Most people who have read 1984 took it as a warning but the Deputy’s party seems to be taking it as some sort of instruction manual.

You are good at it yourself.

How else can we reconcile the party’s performance on this issue?

We have just watched the Deputy condemn the Government’s proposal in respect of industry contributing to the cost of mica redress. Just last week, her colleague, Deputy Doherty, stood in this House, in the same place as the Deputy, and declared, "I also welcome the defective concrete products levy." I then listened to comrade Ó Broin on “Morning Ireland” this morning dodging and weaving on the issue, as only he can, and being Jesuitical in his approach. He said that, yes, of course, we need to make the industry responsible for defective concrete products bear some of the financial burden, but not like this. He then has the ghost of a plan that no one would see or feel involving only the big developers, the big banks - when in doubt, Deputy Ó Broin reaches for the banks - and perhaps, then, estate agents or the bigger estate agents.

Your friends.

Then again, the Deputy’s party had a Private Members’ motion in June 2021 in which it demanded "that those responsible for the manufacture of defective blocks are held to account, and that industry contributes to the overall cost". In that debate Deputy Doherty was equally clear that builders and suppliers "are held to account with a contribution extracted from the industry towards the remediation."

That is right.

The Deputy's party is the party of doublethink and the three-card trick. It is for mica redress and industry making its contribution until it is not. It supports the levy on concrete products until it does not. The industry responsible for the problem should pay until it should not.

This is nearly as good as the Taoiseach's Ard-Fheis speech.

Sinn Féin is making this up as it goes along.

Stand up.

I will put it this way - God help us if it ever gets near the national finances.

In respect of first-time buyers, we have to look at things fairly. This Government is giving unprecedented support to first-time buyers. The help-to-buy scheme has assisted 35,000 first-time buyers, at €30,000 per qualifying property. The new first homes shared equity scheme will provide further supports to first-time buyers. In the past 12 months, more first-time buyers bought their first home than in any year since 2008. This Government is doing an unprecedented amount to support first-time buyers and that will continue. First-time buyers accounted for 26% of all properties purchased in 2021. The Croí Cónaithe towns fund, which is there for first-time buyers, provides a €30,000 grant and that can be increased by an extra €20,000 for particular houses. Then there is the local authority affordable purchase scheme, which is also there for first-time buyers, and the local authority home loan scheme.

On the remediation scheme, the Government is committed to and has signed off on this scheme in respect of €2.7 billion for mica, €230 million for pyrite and anything from €1.5 billion to €2.5 billion for apartments. That is €4.5 billion to €6 billion in costs for remediation. There has to be a revenue stream to at least contribute to that extraordinary expenditure.

We have visitors from schools present. I ask Deputies to show them how questions and answers are engaged in with respect from both sides of the House.

With pleasure, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I welcome our visitors from Ballyhaunis Community School.

Fáilte isteach gach duine.

The Taoiseach would be more Animal Farm than 1984, some being more equal than others and none more unequally treated than that generation I have described to him who are locked out of home ownership, and well he knows it. Yes, industry has to pay. By the way, all of those on the benches opposite are responsible for the light-touch regulation or the no regulation at all that gave rise to this nightmare, so that is where culpability for that lies. Of course, the Taoiseach has to ensure that industry and those responsible, including the banks, pay - that is for sure. Never mind Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, who the Taoiseach has a minor fixation with, if I might say. It is the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland, not Deputy Eoin Ó Broin. It is the chartered surveyors and they are telling the Taoiseach that his initiative will inflate the cost by €4,000. I am asking him not to do that. That is it. Do not do that. Do not move forward with that levy. It is a simple as that.

Go bunúsach, an polasaí atá ag Sinn Féin ná Tadhg an dá thaobh, i gcónaí. They are on both sides all of the time. By the way, Animal Farm applies to the Deputy’s party more than any other party in this Dáil any day. There is no question about that.

Is that as good as the Taoiseach is getting?

Ask a lot of the dissidents and a lot of the people who left her party down through the years. They can verify the degree to which Animal Farm applies to it. That is why Orwell-----

I welcome our visitors from Ballyhaunis secondary school. It is why Orwell should always be a core part of the second level curriculum, just to prepare us.

Muinteoir anseo.

The danger, of course, is that the party opposite, as I have said, in particular take 1984 as an instruction manual and it does it very well, holding many contradictory opinions at the same time.

The Taoiseach's party wants to do away with history.

On the chartered surveyors, they have come up with a calculation without even seeing the detailed design of the levy. The Finance Bill will work out the detailed design of the levy itself. The Department of Finance’s calculations are much lower than what the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland has indicated. Of course, the working out of all of this will be in the context of the Finance Bill.