Well over 650,000 employees in Ireland have benefitted from the scheme to date.
Ireland is set to benefit from €2.5 billion in funding to help the scheme to subsidise employee wages in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On Monday (16 November), a proposal was presented to the European Council for a decision to grant the money in financial support to Ireland under the SURE instrument, a €100 billion fund for temporary support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency.
Once the proposal is approved, the money will be provided in the form of loans granted on favourable terms and go towards a wage subsidy scheme for Irish employees.
The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) in Ireland was replaced by the Employee Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) from 1 September. Over 660,000 employees in Ireland have benefitted from the wage subsidy scheme to date and the EWSS will continue until at least 31 March next year.
Disbursements worth €17 billion from the SURE fund have already been made to Italy, Spain and Poland, with the €2.5 billion set aside for Ireland bringing to €90.3 billion the total level of support proposed to provide funding for 18 EU member states to date.
Member states can still submit formal requests for financial support under SURE for the remaining €9.7 billion of the €100 billion fund.
We are helping EU countries protect jobs and workers with the SURE instrument.
We have proposed to grant €2.5 billion under SURE to Ireland. 🇮🇪
This brings our overall support to 18 EU countries to over €90 billion: https://t.co/1v5g8qvbSl #StrongerTogether pic.twitter.com/H4ppDp4uT1
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) November 16, 2020
Commenting on the funding proposed for Ireland, Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune said: “I very much welcome the news that Ireland is in line to get €2.5 billion in funding from the EU towards the cost of the Temporary Wages Subsidy Scheme set up in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
“The EU Fund – SURE – is set to provide the funding. This fund was set up by the EU to help member states such as Ireland to meet the cost of supporting employment through the Covid-19 crisis.
“Ireland applied to this fund to help cover the cost of the Temporary Wages Subsidy Scheme and we now await approval from the Council on the application. This will really help with the funding of this very valuable scheme that was set up by the Government once the Covid-19 crisis hit.”
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