Government pauses various programmes to assist business community

Last week the Government announced a pause to increase workers’ statutory sick leave from five to seven days. This follows various engagements that the Department of Enterprise, Tourism & Employment has had with industry stakeholders, including the SFA. The SFA has long expressed concerns with increasing the statutory sick pay leave to seven days due to business costs continuing to rise and thus threaten the viability of many small businesses.

It has been reported in the media that the department is developing a 15-point plan to cut the administrative burden for businesses. The package may include a pause on the rollout of its auto enrolment pensions programme which was due to go live in September. There also have been signals from Government that there will be a pause in the transition from the National Minimum Wage to Living Wage. The current calculation of the Living Wage would be 60% of the average national wage.

In recent weeks, the SFA has been engaging with Government Ministers, opposition spokespeople and key civil servants about these measures and how small businesses are struggling to cope with high costs. The SFA is encouraged with these latest developments and it will be making its case for the government to adopt further policies to assist small businesses in its pre-budget submission.

For questions on this topic from a Policy perspective, please contact SFA Public Affairs Lead, Jonathan McDade - Tel: 01 605 1688 or Email: jonathan.mcdade@sfa.ie.

For HR related questions, please contact SFA HR Executive, Zaynab Lawal - Tel: 01 605 1782 or Email: zaynab.lawal@sfa.ie.