€115m from job subsidy scheme not used

SOME €115 MILLION available under the employment subsidy scheme has remained untouched and has not been drawn down by Irish businesses.

Last August the Government allocated €250 million to the new scheme, designed to encourage companies to retain staff during the downturn. To date only €135 million has been drawn down by applicants.

The subsidy programme, administered by Enterprise Ireland, aims to encourage businesses to retain staff by providing an “employee subsidy” to businesses.

Under the terms of the scheme, the Government provided a subsidy of €9,100 per qualifying employee to “vulnerable but viable” firms over a 15-month period.

Firms that received the subsidy were required to commit to retaining as many as 10 staff for every subsidised job.

A maximum subsidy of €200 was available per full-time employee per week for the first 26 weeks, falling to €150, €100 and €50 respectively for each of the subsequent 13-week periods.

The maximum subsidy payable to a single enterprise was €500,000.

Eligibility for the subsidy was restricted to firms that met certain criteria, including companies with a staff of at least 10 and those which exported a minimum of 30 per cent of their output.

Last November, the eligibility criteria for the scheme was extended to include non-exporting firms after it emerged that the take-up of the original scheme had been low.

A total of €68 million out of a possible €250 million had been drawn down in the first round.

A spokeswoman for Enterprise Ireland said €67.2 million had been allocated to companies under the second round, which has been closed to applications since December.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation said the department had no plans to introduce a third round to the scheme, although it would be reviewing the situation.

She added that the scheme had resulted in the retention of almost 100,000 jobs and that 1,670 companies had participated in it.