Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, it was for different reasons. The first one was that at that point in time we had the reasons the Deputy might well imagine. There was a very low expectation of dividends being paid in the first place.

This is because at each point we revised the EWSS we were doing so at moments of great economic difficulty. We moved the temporary wage subsidy scheme, TWSS, into the EWSS because of what was happening with the economy and we extended the EWSS, again because of the impact of very demanding public health regulations. Thus, there was an expectation of it not happening for many and I had many concerns about how it could actually be executed. Generally, it is to be expected that companies that were on the employment wage subsidy scheme continued to be profitable but at lower levels than they would have had in the absence of a pandemic. From my point of view, if I look at the retention of employment and creating new jobs in the future, a certain degree of profitability is both understandable and in many cases can be positive. It means that when we get to a point where we are changing the economic supports, companies are approaching that moment of change while already having a degree of profitability.