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Covid-19 Pandemic Supports

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 April 2021

Wednesday, 21 April 2021

Ceisteanna (198)

Róisín Shortall

Ceist:

198. Deputy Róisín Shortall asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 141 of 10 March 2021, if he will give further consideration to issues raised in additional correspondence from a company (details supplied) in Dublin 11; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20157/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

I have received several items of correspondence on behalf of the company to which you refer. I appreciate that businesses are making enormous sacrifices at the moment to help protect their communities.

The Government has put in place a comprehensive package to help businesses and workers during the pandemic, including the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), the COVID-19 Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS), low-cost loans, the deferral and warehousing of tax liabilities and the waiver of commercial rates.

At an early stage of this crisis, it became apparent that the impacts on economic activity were going to remain with us for much longer than originally anticipated. It also became clear that many businesses were incurring costs such as rent, rates, insurances, maintenance, security and other utilities, on an ongoing basis without the ability to generate the revenues required to meet these costs. Most of these costs are associated with the running costs of a premises, while for businesses without a fixed premises, fixed costs will likely be lower as a proportion of their total expenses.

I acknowledge that many businesses who do not trade from a commercial premises have been severely impacted and, for those individuals and businesses, Government has already moved to provide income supports in the form of the PUP and EWSS which are payable regardless of sector and are available to employees, sole traders and proprietary directors.

Our schemes are there to help meet fixed costs that cannot be avoided and to provide basic weekly income support up to a maximum of €350 per week. We are not providing compensation for loss of personal income above this level or compensation for loss of profits for any sector.

Along with my Government colleagues, I am keeping the range of COVID support measures under review.

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