Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 27 May 2020
72. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Minister for Finance if a decision on a wage subsidy application by a club (details supplied) in County Cork will be re-examined; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7776/20]
View answerSection 28 of the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020 sets out the qualifying conditions required for access to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS). The legislative requirements are that;
- the business is suffering significant negative economic impact due to the pandemic,
- the employees were on the payroll at 29 February 2020, and
- the employer had fulfilled its PAYE reporting obligations for February 2020 by 15 March 2020.
The 15 March deadline in respect of the February 2020 payroll submission was recently extended to ‘before’ 1 April by Revenue in circumstances where all previous payroll submissions were filed before 15 March 2020.
The TWSS builds on data returned to Revenue through the PAYE system and as such is a fully automated solution that is designed around the legislative provisions. The scheme calculates the level of subsidy due based on the employee’s ‘Average Revenue Net Weekly PAY’ (ARNWP) during January and February 2020. The system cannot calculate a subsidy payment for employees that were not on the employer’s payroll at 29 February.
I have been advised by Revenue that the person in question did not begin his current employment until 9 March 2020, which is outside of the specified dates provided in the legislation for the TWSS. For this reason, it was not possible for Revenue to provide his employer with access to the scheme on his behalf.
