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

From the start of this Pandemic, a wide range of aid for businesses and employees have been introduced right across Government. These have included income based schemes such as the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Employee Wage Subsidy Scheme which are payable regardless of sector and are available to employees, sole traders and proprietary directors.

In line with the practice in other jurisdictions, the Government introduced schemes aimed at helping businesses with unavoidable fixed costs such as the Restart Grants, the COVID-19 Restrictions Support Scheme and more recently the scheme introduced by my own Department, Small Business Assistance Scheme for Covid.

The supports above are in addition to the arrangements for tax deferrals introduced by the Minister for Finance, low cost and accessible loan schemes offered by my Department and other financial assistance supports provided to businesses via Enterprise Ireland, InterTrade Ireland and Local Enterprise Offices.

The amount allocated for COVID-19-related supports across 2020 and 2021 is in excess of €28 billion. This extraordinary level of fiscal support has been and remains necessary to help our people manage the impacts of the pandemic.

I and my colleagues across Government will continue to keep the range of measures under review that are helping business and employees with the goal of setting our country towards economic recovery. The Government is determined to ensure there will be no cliff-edge scenario and businesses and employees will continue to be supported as much as possible.