SME Recovery Ireland publishes its Budget 2021 submission

SME Recovery Ireland has published its 2021 Budget submission, outlining a range of policies and interventions that it said will help a broad population of SMEs.

Launched earlier this year, SME Recovery Ireland is a platform representing Ireland’s small and medium business sector to ensure that policy response to Covid-19 is designed to succeed for SMEs. It is backed and endorsed by a number of organisations, including Habic and the Hairdressing Council of Ireland

Its Budget submission has a focus on sustaining SME recovery and building the sector’s resilience, with suggested policy interventions aimed at stabilising and recapitalising the small business sector so that employment and economic activity can be restore

“As the Government works to finalise and publish its National Economic Plan and the 2021 Budget, the approach adopted must be based on the need to reboot the entire SME sector and not merely a smaller sub-section of it and find a way for it to navigate choppy waters in an already perilous state,” it said.

“Many have called for sector-specific measures but pan-sectoral measures for the SME sector are equally as important as those targeted sector-specific ones. Financial resilience in the SME sector can only be built with the right blend of policies to create a financially strong and sustainable SME sector. The State must ensure that the SME sector does not fail as a result of the pandemic, a natural disaster not of the making of the SME sector.”

SME Recovery’s key actions to sustain economic recovery are that all Government-supported lending schemes have ease of access as a key requirement for small and micro-businesses; the Covid credit guarantee scheme be extended to December 2021; and the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) also be extended to December 2021. The EWSS recently replace the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS).

“The replacement of the TWSS provided welcome certainty but the significant reduction in scale of the scheme will pose a challenge for many businesses,” said SME Recovery. “A further extension of this scheme to 31 December 2021, with a phased wind-down, is key to ensure the recovery is sustained.”

The group is also seeking a dedicated Government minister for small business, and a national agency dedicated to small businesses.