Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 November 2020
159. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if the restart plus grant is being paid; the number of applications received and approved to date; if there are delays in allocating funding for the grant to Fáilte Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36305/20]
View answerThe Restart Grant scheme was launched on 15 May with a budget of €250 million. The Restart Plus scheme was launched on 10 August with an additional budget of €300m from the Government’s July Jobs Stimulus as a result of the increasing demand for the scheme.
The purpose of the scheme was to help with the cost of reopening or adapting business premises so that normal business can resume. Grant payments are administered by the Local Authorities via the commercial rates system and disbursements are made through Enterprise Ireland to the Local Authorities, based on estimated schedules per county. In total, over 106,000 applications have been managed under both Restart schemes, with over 90,000 of these approved for payment. The amounts paid are published every week on my Department's website.
Since the introduction of the Restart Plus scheme, several top-up payments were approved by Government to deal with additional financial pressures caused by necessary COVID-19 restrictions. These included top-ups in Kildare, Laois and Offaly, a top-up for ‘wet’ pubs, top-ups in Dublin and Donegal, and most recently, a top-up of 30% for all eligible businesses nationally.
In view of the additional costs to the scheme arising from these top-ups, my Department has worked with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Local Authorities on the remaining funding requirements over recent weeks and disbursement is now underway. In this context, my Department has engaged with Fáilte Ireland to introduce the Restart Grant Plus for B&Bs as notified under the July Stimulus. Disbursement for this scheme is now underway.
The Restart Plus scheme closed as of 31 October and has effectively been replaced by the COVID Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS) operated by the Revenue Commissioners.
