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Enterprise Newsletter 06 April 2022

Table of contents

Supports for business: COVID-19 and ongoing

All Irish workers will be entitled to sick pay for the first time under new law

Enterprise Ireland has launched the ‘Build to Innovate’ Initiative

European Commission’s public consultation on the Data Act

NSAI Webinar on emerging opportunities in design standards for our built environment

Supports for business: COVID-19 and ongoing

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began the Government has provided a range of financial supports for business. A number of measures are still in place but some will end in the coming months, others later into 2022:

  • there is a graduated step-down in the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme to 30 April 2022 or 31 May 2022, depending on the extent to which your business was impacted by the public restrictions imposed in December 2021
  • the commercial rates waiver was extended until the end of March 2022
  • the tax debt warehousing scheme has been further extended until 30 April 2022
  • an extension of the reduction in VAT rate of 9% for the hospitality and tourism sector has been further extended until the end of August 2022

As these schemes close, your business may require additional supports. In the first instance you can get free advice from the nationwide network of Local Enterprise Offices, who can talk to you about the ongoing loans and grants the Government provides.

Learn more about the range of ongoing supports, advisory services and restructuring options available to businesses.

All Irish workers will be entitled to sick pay for the first time under new law

The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar TD has received Government approval for new laws to give all workers the right to paid sick leave for the first time in Ireland.

The Sick Leave Bill 2022 was approved by Cabinet and will legislate for a statutory sick pay scheme for all employees, phased in over a four-year period.

The initial plan is as follows:

  • 2022 - 3 days covered
  • 2024 - 5 days covered
  • 2025 - 7 days covered
  • 2026 - 10 days covered

Sick pay will be paid by employers at a rate of 70% of an employee’s wage, subject to a daily maximum threshold of €110. The daily earnings threshold of €110 is based on 2019 mean weekly earnings of €786.33 and equates to an annual salary of €40,889.16. It can be revised by ministerial order in line with inflation and changing incomes.

Enterprise Ireland - Build to Innovate

An initiative by Enterprise Ireland under the Housing for All programme

Enterprise Ireland has launched the ‘Build to Innovate’ Initiative to support Modern Methods of Construction in homebuilding.

The Build to Innovate initiative seeks to support companies in the sector who wish to pursue:

  • enhanced usage and implementation of Modern Methods of Construction
  • implementing Lean training in both manufacturing and onsite environments
  • improving the use of digital tools that can bring productivity benefits
  • funding for research concepts or process innovation ideas.

These grants will help residential construction companies in Ireland to improve their productivity and build more houses for less — a key plank in the Government’s ‘Housing for All’ plan.

European Commission’s public consultation on the Data Act

The ‘Data Act’, aims to facilitate access to and use of data, including business-to business and business-to-government, and to review the rules on the legal protection of databases.

It seeks the right balance between rights to access data and incentives to invest in data, without changing the current data protection rules. It aims to do this by:

  • facilitating the access to and use of data by businesses and consumers while preserving incentives to invest in ways of generating value through data
  • providing for the use by public sector bodies etc of data held by enterprises where there is an exceptional need
  • facilitating switching between cloud and edge services
  • providing for safeguards against unlawful (third country) data transfer without notification by a cloud provider
  • provide for the development of interoperability standards for data to be reused between sectors

Submissions should be marked “Public Consultation on the Data Act” and can be emailed to: dsmunit@enterprise.gov.ie

NSAI Webinar on emerging opportunities in design standards for our built environment

The NSAI have posted a video recording and transcript of the “Emerging opportunities in design standards for our built environment: well-being, inclusion and Universal Design” webinar. The webinar was held on 25 March 2022 to inform the various stakeholders of the publication of standards and their importance both in the public and private sector.

The webinar features presentations by members of the NSAI/TC23 Technical Committee:

  • Introduction and background to the Standards: Speakers - Tom Grey & Ruth O’Reilly
  • I.S. EN 17210 in the Irish regulatory context: Speakers - Eoin O’Dowd & Caitríona Shaffrey
  • Using the standards in daily practice: Speaker - Fionnuala Rogerson