Fears Donohoe would be ‘undermined’ led to wage subsidy U-turn
Department worried that sustained campaign over ‘proprietary directors’ would be bad publicity for minister in run-up to budget
Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Finance, was forced into a U-turn over rules on a pandemic wage subsidy scheme after being warned an orchestrated campaign was likely to “undermine” him in the run-up to the budget.
One of the country’s most senior civil servants admitted that backing down on changes to the employment wage subsidy scheme (EWSS) would be a “bad signal”, but that the Department of Finance would eventually be forced to “give in”.