Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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123. To ask the Minister for Finance if a company which had some staff on the wage subsidy scheme who will be re-employed after 1 May 2020 will have their wage subsidy refunded; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6708/20]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) is an emergency measure to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy. The underlying legislation and the scheme itself were developed within a very short timeframe to support the urgent Government objective of getting much needed assistance to employers and employees, where businesses have been seriously affected by the necessary restrictions introduced to fight the pandemic. The purpose of the scheme is to ensure the relationship between employers and employees is maintained to the greatest extent possible so that businesses can restart operations quickly once that is possible.

While the TWSS is payable to eligible staff that were rehired after 1 May 2020, I have been advised by Revenue that further IT development work is required to facilitate the processing of such cases. Revenue is actively working on this system development and is confident that the required technology will be in place later this week.

Revenue has confirmed that in excess of 22,000 employees have started or restarted employments since 1 May, of which approximately 5,000 are ‘rehired’ staff that are eligible for the TWSS. Employers who submitted payroll after 1 May for those ‘rehired’ staff will be processed for refund this week.