Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Cummins for raising this issue, which, as he pointed out, is a significant one for many smaller businesses due to the cashflow implications.

The EWSS is an economy-wide enterprise support that gives a flat-rate subsidy to qualifying employers to preserve the link between employee and employer and to support the firm's viability insofar as is possible. The design of the EWSS reflects the changing environment around the Covid-19 pandemic which has shifted from crisis mode to one of living alongside the virus, in line with the recently announced Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021: Plan for Living with COVID-19. It important to emphasise that the EWSS is a subsidy to the employer, unlike TWSS, which was an income support to the employee paid via the employer. The payment under the TWSS was listed on the person's payslip. Some people did not like the stigma of that on their payslips, but it was there to show that it was coming directly to the employee.

The EWSS is a lump-sum grant to the employer based on the number of employees who qualify. It is not geared to any particular employee. It is based on the number of employees. A company may submit that it has two staff in a category or ten or 50 employees in a category, as the case may be. It is a subsidy to the employer to keep the business open and to maintain links with the employees. In that situation there is no direct reference on any of the payslips for employees in that situations because it is not based on the individual employee situation, it is based on the employer's overall position.

As the Senator has mentioned, the timeline of payments under the EWSS has also moved into line with regular monthly payroll returns to Revenue, which has always been the case for companies dealing with the latter. We had the shorter timescale because we were in the height of the emergency with many more people on the pandemic unemployment payment and the TWSS payments. It was essential that we had emergency payments on a weekly basis. Having to make returns weekly increased administrative work for all the businesses involved. Now we are trying to get to living with Covid in the longer term, and trying to get employers back to the ways they have always operated in making monthly returns to Revenue.

When businesses make their returns to Revenue on the 14th of the month following their payroll payments they generally get the subsidy payments turned around within two days of receipt of the payroll submission, which is the 16th of the month. Depending on the pay date used by the employer it may be as short a turnaround as 16 days but it could be up to six weeks in some cases, which is the crux of the issue. Those companies with monthly payrolls have the two week period delay. Where it had been a weekly payment, now it depends on the start of the employer's pay date. As of 30 September, some 37,165 employers had successfully registered for the scheme. There was a look-back at seasonal entrants and new employments, with 2,700 people who were not eligible under TWSS now in receipt of the EWSS payment. This is an improvement for new hires or seasonal workers back in the scheme. I would consider this to be a benefit.

There are various grant schemes that could help the cashflow of smaller businesses, including the restart scheme and the restart grant plus scheme. The Senator referred to the tourism, hotel and hospitality sector.The stay and spend scheme is in operation from today. I advise everyone in a locality, if he or she cannot travel to another county, to get out in a county where it is safe to do so and spend money in a restaurant with his or her family at the weekend. This would create extra business at local level. Revenue will provide a tax credit for those people next year.