Ms Marian Quinn:

I would like to add to that. The reality was that sole traders - and quite a number of providers are sole traders - were not able to take a wage under the temporary wage subsidy scheme over the period of time. One woman who contacted us is 67 years of age, so she was not even able to apply for the pandemic unemployment payment. That created a huge sustainability issue for her. She may have been getting €300 towards covering her overheads and then she was depending on the pension.

Her overheads were not covered by that. She still had to put in the time to support staff, engage with CPD and administer their wages. It was very unfortunate that she was really hard done by in that case. There are many more like that.