Finance Minister Michael McGrath has confirmed that the planned excise duty hike will take place in September as it is now “locked in”, reports RTE.
He said that the government had already made this decision and Orachtas had prepared the corresponding law.
However, he added that it will take time to reach consumers.
“In the same way as when excise was reduced, it took a while to feed through to the prices at the forecourts, the same should apply when excise is increased,” reports RTE.
Excise duty was reduced in March 2022 as part of various measures to help overcome the rising cost of living.
This move is the last phase of the return to the base rate.
The minister said the cuts came at the cost of reduced excise tax revenues by around €1 billion.
There will be a further phase of excise recovery in October, and McGrath said the government would look into it.
McGrath also confirmed that the concrete block levy would be introduced next month after a delay of several months, reports RTE.
The levy was introduced to pay for faulty block repair programs in Donegal and elsewhere.
He stated that it is important to have a credible long-term financing plan for an extremely important, multi-year and multi-billion-dollar project, despite the risk of passing the costs of building houses on to consumers.
The minister rejected suggestions that the government backtracked on its promise not to include precast concrete in the tax.
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