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

It might be helpful to the committee to give the current state of play in respect of EWSS. That will frame the answers I give to the Deputy. As he stated, we are now in the final stage of the exit from the EWSS. Most businesses will exit the scheme at the end of April and some businesses, mainly hospitality businesses that were affected by the 8 p.m. closing time, are due to exit at the end of May. We currently have 22,000 employers and 260,000 employees supported by EWSS. Although it is not possible to be absolutely definitive, we expect that by the end of this month, 18,000 of those 22,000 employers will exit EWSS. That is equivalent to 160,000 employees. We expect a considerable majority of the employers and a majority of the employees to leave EWSS in a few weeks, with the balance then due to exit at the end of May.

As regards modelling or analysis we have done in respect of the number of businesses that could find themselves facing challenges due to this, we have not been able to form a view in respect of businesses that could be at risk. Indeed, we ran the EWSS for the duration we have to give businesses the best chance of being viable because they were viable before Covid hit. I hope, therefore, that the vast majority of businesses will be in a position to return to successful trading, but I expect it will be towards the end of the year that we will have a better sense of whether the viability of employers will be affected. My expectation is that the vast majority of businesses that are on EWSS will be able to exit from it and trade successfully.