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THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has approved the Government’s Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (TBESS).
Announced as part of Budget 2023, the grant scheme is designed to assist businesses with their energy costs during the winter months.
The scheme will be open to businesses that have seen an increase in their average energy unit price of 50% or more from 2021.
Businesses who qualify will receive 40% of the increase in their gas and electricity bills. A monthly cap of €10,000 will apply.
The TBESS will cost approximately €1.2 billion and will be administered by the Revenue Commissioner under a self assessment basis.
As the scheme was designed to be compliant with the EU state aid Temporary Crisis Framework, it needed approval by the EU Commission in advance of making payments.
The scheme’s online system for registrations will open on Saturday 26 November. Businesses will then use the system to submit claims under the scheme from 5 December.
Payments will be made once Finance Bill 2022, which contains the legislation underpinning the scheme, is enacted later in December.
Revenue’s guidelines on the scheme will be updated today, setting out further details regarding how businesses can register for and make claims under the scheme using the online system.
Welcoming the EU’s approval of the scheme, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said it is “so important to so many businesses struggling to pay astronomical gas and electricity bills”.
“My Government colleagues and I have been hearing from businesses all around the country about how much they really need this money – and we want to get it to them as soon as possible – ideally before Christmas,” Varadkar said.
He urged businesses owners and managers to “have your bills ready, have your tax clearance certs ready, and make sure that your claim can be processed by Revenue without any undue delay”.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe also welcomed the move. He said the scheme is “the largest single item announced as part of Budget 2023, the Government’s cost of living budget that will help individuals, families and businesses deal with rising prices”.
“The scheme will provide much needed support to thousands of businesses across the country who are experiencing a material shock to the price of their energy inputs,” he said.
When the scheme was announced in September, business groups claimed that a payment of 40% of a bill’s increase won’t do enough to protect employers.
The managing director of Retail Excellence, the largest representative body for the retail industry in Ireland, said:
“We welcome the fact that there has been an intervention in the energy crisis with targeted supports and that many people will have more money in their pockets to spend, but we will have to examine the qualifying criteria for the energy support scheme in more detail.
“It remains to be seen whether this will be sufficient for many businesses who have been crippled by rising costs this year,” Duncan Graham said.
Labour also criticised the scheme, calling it a “license to print money” for energy companies.
“The TBESS is an undercooked eleventh hour measure, and it really shows. The details are sketchy and it is simply back of the envelope stuff. It is alarmingly clear that lessons have not been learned from previous support schemes,” finance spokesperson Ged Nash said.
“Rather than cap the price of energy and guarantee the jobs and wages of workers, the new TBESS will in effect indirectly subsidise profiteering energy companies. “
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The only winners here will be the banks. I, like the rest of the country are on standby to bail them out again
@Caoimhín O Neill: The banks always win, never lose and will still take out of your pocket in a pandemic. The cycle never ends
@Caoimhín O Neill: 100% spot on Caoimhin. The paid bots on here shot me down numerous times when I said that after Hayes said the banks will help. They banks see this crisis as an opportunity to make massive money.
I would beg on the side of the road for money to pay my mortgage and bills before I would ask a bank for help.
@Caoimhín O Neill: there’ll be no bail out. It’s a bail in. Digi currency. Time limit on your money under the mattress or void.
@David Corrigan: I’m 37 got sick reasonly (self employed) and the government gave me not one cent the only people who helped were the banks you deferred my mortgage for 6 months,some relief.look just my little story
@thomas mitchell: I hope you are feeling better and doing well Thomas. Did the banks explain to you how much it will cost you for availing of that break though?
@Caoimhín O Neill: If 500000 people stay unemployed, there will be hardly anyone to bail out the banks
@Kevin Thompson: That’s when they go after a percentage of any savings in the country Kevin.
@David Corrigan: only if we let them.
@SJF: we will let them. Why wouldn’t we?
@David Corrigan: people will just take their money out of the bank, then there would be no cashflow
If we had government lead iniatives and public housing being built on a mass scale then the housing market wouldn’t be so volatile. Instead we are at the whim of speculators and developers.
Prices will go down,if the unemployed people stay unemployed, after 3 months, as they can’t afford the already inflated rent. The landlords will have to reduce rents or sell.If the banks don’t agree to extend their 3 month freeze on Mortgages, they will be left with a lot of properties, with no cash coming in via mortgages. The banks will have to reduce interest rates, as a smaller income is better than no income.they don’t want to be left with a load of houses that they can’t sell at market value. Vulture funds will no longer see property as a viable investment.the new development will at some stage be finished.Prices will come down.
@Kevin Thompson: You would think so but our present government support the huge rents. They are already pumping a billion a year into keeping rents inflated via various rent allowance payments. HAP’s started in 2014 and cost the taxpayer €0.5 million. In 2018 they had risen to €423 million. Last year it had jumped to €498 million. That is not all they spent last year. Add RAS (€95 million), Rent Supplement (€133 million) and SHCEP (€191 million). The total government spending on rent last year was €914 million. The government have consistently supported the rental sector. They won’t stop now.
@Niall Bourke: It’s a bad model to support rents, build more affordable houses, would be at a almost zero cost, (might have to initially borrow money and pay interest). They won’t have enough money to continuously support rent as that figure could Quadruple. Plus having to pay more Unemployment and less tax coming in.
@Kevin Thompson: You would think so Kevin but they will find it. Maybe another temporary tax would help. They could call it the Universal Rental Social Charge (URSC) for short.
@Niall Bourke: I think that there would be mass protests
@Niall Bourke: Imagine asking the Nurses and Doctors and other health care workers and frontline staff to pay an additional tax, when this is over
Feck, here is me thinking I could get a good deal when this is all over, our housing market is seriously f##ked up
@david hynes: don’t believe the hype, the estate agent would bite your hand off if you were to offer 20-30 thousand less than asking price
@Kevin Thompson: estate agents don’t own the properties.
@Da Vid: they will tell their clients to sell as they will not get any commission. they don’t want to spend too long on showing properties around and not to get income. Property won’t be a viable option for vulture funds as rent will go down.If there are no jobs to pay for the rent, people will move back to their parents, move abroad or rent will come down.
@Kevin Thompson: estate agent might but I as a potential seller wouldn’t. No way I’m selling my house for less than what I paid for it especially when I can just rent it out. People are still going to need housing after this and if anything the demand will go up due to the lack of houses being built now and before the covid crises. I wouldn’t be holding out for massive price drops like happened in the 2008 recession.
New home completions will fall sharply, because building is paused, supply chains are interrupted, & mortgages withheld.
The resale market will continue, as protected/ secure employments will get mortgage approvals,& prices will reflect availability. Scarcity may hold up prices until the flow of new homes comes back on stream.
The long term impact is that more of the population, those in less secure employments, which category is now expanded, will never get approvals.
The logic of this is that state public housing must be re-established as the primary housing provision for the bulk of the population. The current patchwork market system is inadequate, even with HAS, & will fail again, & again, leading to social unrest.
@William Kelly: Sense, in a Journal comment section? Truly these are the end times.
@William Kelly: State public housing for rent and affordable houses as affordable houses are at a net cost of zero
Why the obsession with property? Far more important things in the World right now. Literally life and death!
@Dave Thomas: if you manage to stay alive you’ll need somewhere to live. Not add to the 10k plus already homeless. What this Pandemic has shown is that if the Gov really wanted to, they could change that figure too.
@Da Vid: Dave, Do you own your property? If you are relying on a State pension when you retire, you won’t be able to support yourself. Either have somewhere to live and starve/freeze to death. Rents will come down, that will in turn cause house prices to go down too
@Dave Thomas: the Journal is owned by the same company that Owns Daft
It’s probably the best news source for the property market since they have direct access to the most data.
Well news source with the best access to the data, not necessarily the best at writing about it but anyway
@Dave Thomas: Do you own a property?
@Kevin Thompson: why will rents come down? No logic in that at all unless you see more properties coming available anytime soon? Those who still have jobs will pay the going rate, those who don’t will be assisted by government to pay the going rate. The fact less people will be eligible for mortgages means if anything more pressure on the rent sector which will drive up rents even more.
The Central Bank must now step up to the mark and help in this pandemic. What the Bank did duing the last crisis.should not be accepted this time.
@Locojoe: Ha ha good one, have you seen who’s back at the helm, bankers fanboys.
Get the builders back
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