Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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138. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the analysis his Department has carried out into the uptake and effectiveness of Government supports for Covid-19 impacted businesses; the uptake to date of each of the Covid-19 business supports provided by his Department in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60797/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Government has worked to support businesses through these challenging times with a wide range of measures for firms of all sizes, which includes the wage subsidy scheme, business continuity and trading online grants, Restart Grants, COVID-19 Working Capital Scheme, the COVID-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme, the Future Growth Loan Scheme, commercial rates waivers and warehousing of tax liabilities. Details of the supports can be found on my Department’s website: Government supports for COVID-19 impacted businesses - DETE (enterprise.gov.ie). I also publish an update table on the uptake of the range of advisory and finance schemes on my Department's website.

On 3^rdDecember the Government agreed some additional public health measures to help to reduce the spread of COVID-19 including extra economic supports approved for sectors impacted by public health measures.

We recognise that these decisions, coming in addition to those of 16th November, will have a particular impact on sectors such as hospitality, the night time economy, and the arts and entertainment sectors.

With this in mind, on Friday we announced a package of financial interventions for the hospitality, events and entertainment sectors. The package includes:

- a change to the CRSS or EWSS, details of which will be confirmed very shortly by the Minister for Finance

- an extension of the targeted commercial rates waiver at least until the end of March

- an extra €25 million from the Covid contingency fund applied to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, in particular to assist the live entertainment, arts and performance sectors.

As the Deputy will be aware, the PUP has also been reopened for workers who lose their jobs or have lost their jobs as a result of the newly announced restrictions.

Details of existing supports can be found on my Department’s website: Government supports for COVID-19 impacted businesses - DETE (enterprise.gov.ie). For further details on the new scheme and the changes to the Pandemic Unemployment Payment please refer to the Department of Finance and the Department of Social Protection.

Government policy remains that there will be no cliff edge to the support. All business supports are being kept under review to ensure that they are timely and target those that need them the most.