Matt Shanahan Urges Expanded COVID Support for SMEs and Sole Traders

Minister, the Covid Restriction Support Scheme was designed to bring some certainty to business in these very uncertain times. For those businesses who have applied and qualified for the CRIS, it has obviously proved a valuable lifeline, but it has to be said tying eligibility to apply to the scheme to the operation of the business premises has excluded very many SMEs and service sector businesses. Many have great difficulty in accessing other forms of government support outside of wage supports, which are obviously not fully applicable if your business is closed. There are significant service businesses which have been developed through great entrepreneurship and which reflect the dynamic innovation that we will be looking for post-Covid. I can think of catering companies, event managers, sound engineers and many other privately and self-employed for whom the CRIS payment is a closed avenue for grant support. I would ask you, Minister, to consider the many private small and medium business owners who have leasing and finance arrangements in place, the many with rent and capital loan repayments for which they are receiving no support. For these people, the decision is either to delve into hard-earned savings or take on additional debt. This is the only way they are technically surviving in hope of a restoration of business demand. I mentioned certainty, Minister, and that is one thing that government can probably not fully guarantee, but it must signal some extension of existing monies and additional supports to cover the various business sectors I have mentioned and many more. These businesses left without support. For many owners now, there is a real challenge in deciding whether to try and struggle on or to call it a day. Without adequate support measures being put in place, many of these business owners and their present furloughed staff will end up on the live register and will become hard and extended liability on the public purse. It is a well-known fact that it is easier to support an existing job than to spend money trying to create a new one, and I would urge you, Minister, and the Government, and Revenue, to consider further on your initiatives to support private sector workers. At some point, we hope to exit this COVID nightmare, and we will need resilient businesses, which we have supported, to be ready again to create economic growth and wealth. I believe the Government and Revenue need to listen to a far greater degree to the pleas of business owners and sole traders who have carried more than their fair share of tax burdens over many years. The implications to ignoring them will be a further social and economic cost this State does not have to create. Thank you very much.