Tag Archives: July Stimulus

COMMUNITY and voluntary organisations across the county are at risk and facing a funding crisis, the chairperson of the Killaloe Municipal District has warned. Councillor Pat Hayes said that the public health restrictions have left the sector reeling and fighting for survival, despite the fact that it continues to make a huge contribution to the Covid-19 response, particularly in rural parts of Clare. He is now calling on government to open up funding opportunities so that organisations can apply to cover some of their basic running costs. “What you have here is a double blow to the sector,” the Fianna Fáil member outlined. “If you take a community hall or GAA facility, they’ve had to shut down which means they’ve lost any income they might normally be able to generate. Most of them still have basic costs to cover and restrictions on gatherings have meant that most of the normal fundraising events have been impossible.” Councillor Hayes said that while …

Clare businesses have received €3,441,338 to date from the Government’s Covid-19 Restart Grant to help them get back on their feet. The figures were confirmed by local Fine Gael TD Joe Carey who said: “Clare County Council is responsible for administering the Government’s Restart Grant and has confirmed that small and micro businesses in Clare have now been allocated just under €3,5 million so far. “This is crucial to helping local businesses to get back on their feet after what has been an extremely difficult few months. The funding is designed to help businesses with the costs associated with reopening and re-employing workers following Covid-19 closures. Businesses can avail of between €2,000 and €10,000 for this purpose. “Getting these businesses back open is so important to the revival of our local economy here in Clare as they are such important employers.” Deputy Carey said his colleague, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar is overseeing “targeted supports” …

Clare Hoteliers have expressed serious concerns about the stimulus package announced by the Government which does not go far enough to support Irish tourism and safeguard the livelihoods of the 270,000 employed by the industry – including the 12,000 jobs supported locally by tourism in Clare. Dermot Kelly, Chair of the Shannon Branch of the Irish Hotels Federation states: “We are disappointed that the Government failed to deliver a reduction in tourism VAT. This is a missed opportunity given how highly effective the previous reduced VAT rate was in promoting increased employment. We now have a higher rate of VAT than 30 other European countries with which we compete. This is untenable from a competitiveness point of view and puts us at a serious disadvantage, particularly when consider our nearest neighbours Northern Ireland and Britain now have a tourism VAT rate of 5%.  We will be engaging further with the Government on this critical issues as part of the October …