Government working on scheme to refund firms paying more than €203/week to laid off staff

The Government is working on an expanded scheme to refund employers who pay workers who have been laid off more than €203 per week, the Minister for Social Protection Regina Doherty has indicated.

The Minister suggested that the current arrangements, under which employers were asked if possible to continue to pay their workers at least the jobseeker rate of €203 per week and receive a subsequent refund from the State, was introduced very speedily and was being looked at again.

Her department had said on Thursday that employers who temporarily laid staff off and paid them over this amount would not qualify for a refund.

Ms Doherty said an announcement would be made shortly.

Employers who offer more than State's Covid-19 payment will not be refunded

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“In a time of crisis with a sudden sharp shock we need to do things as quickly as we can - one of these things is to support workers who lose their jobs another is to support employers to keep workers in jobs.

“Where we can do both at the same time we will. That is the idea of the employer refund which we put together in less than two days over the weekend. This allows the employer to pay the worker € 203 and receive a refund from the State.” The Minister said this worked for those employers who had no means to pay any top-up, “which is actually most employers in the sector effected”.

“We did this quickly and launched it as soon as we could because time was of the essence and we didn’t want the perfect to get in the way of the good.

“Paying a refund to those employers who can continue to pay their workers, albeit not at their full rate of pay, is a bit more challenging. We have being working on this all week and expect to be able to make an announcement very soon,” she said.

On Thursday, Ms Doherty said she accepted that more than 400,000 people could lose their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Asked about projections from some analysts who forecast that the number of people made unemployed during the outbreak could pass 400,000, she said: “It could be potentially as drastic [as those projections]. We have not overused the word unprecedented in the past few days but it has been that.”

She said her department and her Government colleagues would give all supports to “see us through the next few weeks”.

“We are in a very different place on our modelling compared to last week. [It is more] than the obvious industries that are affected . . .Every day there is another industry that I did not expect to be affected.”