Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

47. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will introduce a support scheme for businesses that do not pay rates. [12111/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The financial support the Government is providing businesses and workers affected by the pandemic is unprecedented. Almost a million people of working age are now in receipt of weekly payments including the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP), Employment Wage Subsidy (EWSS) and Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance. Support for business includes the weekly CRSS payment for businesses forced to close their doors to the public, reduced VAT rates, a commercial rates holiday, the Sustaining Enterprise Fund, the Tourism Business Continuity Scheme as well as low cost loans.

Budget 2021 provided a significant package of tax and expenditure measures to build the resilience of the economy and to help vulnerable but viable businesses across all sectors. Details of the wide range of supports available are on my Department’s website.

These measures are in addition to the €7 billion July Stimulus of enterprise measures, which includes the Wage Subsidy Scheme extended through 2021, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, grants, low-cost loans, write-off of commercial rates and deferred tax liabilities, all of which will help to improve cashflow amongst self-employed. We are providing for an extension of the tax warehousing scheme to include repayments of Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme funds owed by employers and preliminary tax obligations for adversely affected businesses.

As announced in the July Stimulus, the Enterprise Support Grant was extended to assist eligible self-employed, including sole traders, who exit the PUP or jobseekers schemes, to re-start their business. Further information is available at www.gov.ie. The PUP and EWSS are now extended to end of June.

I acknowledge that many businesses who do not trade from a commercial premises have been severely impacted, and for those individuals and businesses, Government has already moved to provide income supports in the form of the PUP, TWSS and EWSS which are payable regardless of sector and are available to employees, sole traders and proprietary directors. Where gaps have been identified, Government has moved quickly to fill those gaps and to ensure that nobody is left behind. Self-employed individuals can now earn up to €960 over an 8 week period and still remain eligible for the PUP.

The Deputy should also note that in the 2021 Budget, the Government allocated significant additional resources to Departments to provide help to different sectors. I would highlight the €395m provided to the Department of Transport and the €222m allocated to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

These additional monies will go towards helping businesses, including self employed and those that are not rate paying businesses, such as through the €30m for private bus operators, €55m for a focused business scheme for strategic tourism businesses along with a €50m scheme for the live entertainment sector.

These are in addition to financial assistance and other schemes provided to businesses via Enterprise Ireland, InterTrade Ireland and Local Enterprise Offices.

The three main schemes, the CRSS, EWSS and PUP compare favourably with any other packages on offer in other countries. The Government is very much open to proposals as to how we can help further but the Government schemes are generally designed to help meet fixed costs that cannot be avoided and it is not possible to provide compensation for loss of personal income or profits.

I will continue to monitor closely the range of government schemes in place along with my Ministerial colleagues.