As the Deputy will appreciate, any thorough analysis of company closures on account of COVID-19 will require hard data which will arise from a variety of sources over the course of any given year. Insights are currently available from business surveys, stakeholder engagements, and real-time data at the level of employee where employees interact with the State’s employment support system.
I would refer the Deputy to my Department’s recent report on Economic Considerations for Reinstating Economic Activity which is publicly available on my Department’s website. The report includes analyses by the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform which makes clear that the most-heavily impacted sectors are Accommodation and Food, Construction, Administrative and Support Services, Wholesale & Retail Trade, and other Personal Services. Other sectors where the impacts are significant but somewhat less severe include the Manufacturing sector, and Transport and Storage. This pattern of sectoral impacts is similar to that observed in other countries. In terms of employment, the report observes that the Department of Finance’s ‘central’ scenario in its Stability Programme Update projects employment to fall substantially in 2020, with approximately 220,000 jobs being lost. The unemployment rate is projected to dramatically rise over the first half of the year, with an average rate in the mid 20% range during the second quarter, before falling over the second half of the year, as containment measures are gradually eased.
The CSO has conducted surveys on the business impacts of COVID-19 with the most recent release of 18th May last presenting findings of the second wave of the exercise. The Business Impact of COVID-19 Survey (BICS) has been created to measure and report quickly on the impact of COVID-19 on business in Ireland. A total of 3,000 enterprises were surveyed online for BICS Wave Two, with 24.5% of sampled enterprises completing the survey. The survey reports:
- Nearly one in four (23.9%) enterprises had ceased trading either temporarily or permanently on 3 May 2020.
- Almost a quarter (23.0%) of enterprises closed temporarily while 0.9% closed permanently.
- More than three in four (76.0%) of responding enterprises were continuing to trade in some capacity on 3rd May 2020.
- Among the enterprises who responded to both waves of the survey, one in six of those who had ceased trading temporarily by 19 April indicated that they had recommenced trading by 3 May.
Of note also is that:
- Two-thirds of Construction enterprises ceased trading either temporarily or permanently. Again, one would expect this to decrease arising from the return of construction activities in Phase 1 of the Roadmap.
- Seven in ten enterprises had lower turnover due to COVID-19 over the two-week period from 20 April to 3 May 2020.
- Exports decreased for over half of responding enterprises.
- Almost half of responding enterprises expressed confidence in having financial resources to continue operating for longer than six months.
- Over half of enterprises availed of Government supports schemes.
- Social distancing in the workplace implemented by over half of respondents. Over half (53.2%) of responding enterprises had implemented working arrangements to facilitate social distancing in the workplace at some point during the COVID-19 crisis. This rose to 77.4% of enterprises in the Manufacturing sector.
Turning to the issue of inspection and enforcement, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) is the lead Agency in relation to oversight and compliance with the national Return to Work Safely Protocol. It will ensure compliance with the Protocol through a range of measures including advice, guidance, inspection and enforcement action as appropriate and as provided for in the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.
The HSA is deploying all of its available field inspectors across all sectors to carry out both spot checks and other inspections to check compliance with the Protocol. However, the Government will ensure that the HSA inspectorate will be supplemented significantly by deploying, under the authority of the HSA, other inspectors from across the system who already have an environmental health, agriculture or other workplace/business inspection responsibilities.
While details of these additional resources are currently being finalised, the numbers working with the HSA will be in the hundreds, from across the system. These will be specialist officials who already have sectoral business inspection responsibilities. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has given a commitment that inspectors from his Department will work with the HSA to ensure the implementation of the Protocol in workplaces. Compliance with the COVID-19 Return to Work Safely Protocol will become part of the normal inspection regime. It will start shortly with around 200 officials from the Environmental Health Service, and this number will increase steadily as officials from other parts of the system, with varying sectoral inspection and oversight responsibilities are brought on board, in line with the Government Roadmap. The details are being finalised at present.
