'A crisis for workers and families' - TD says State should 'step in' and help small businesses

Banks are being asked to consider offering breaks for mortgage holders who have been laid off due to the outbreak of coronavirus.

It comes amid concerns about small businesses going bust during this closure.

Around 140,000 people have already lost their jobs as pubs, clubs and leisure facilities shut.

Emergency payments have been put in place by the Department of Employment Affairs for workers.

“Many of (the small businesses) are operating on quite small margins and the collapse on consumer spending that’s happening is going to impact right across the economy,” TD Paul Murphy said.

Where a small business genuinely cannot afford to its workers, they should open their books to demonstrate that, but the State should step in.

“Officially at least 140,000 have been laid off many more are likely to be laid off in the coming weeks,” he warned.

“It’s a real crisis for the workers and their families,” Mr Murphy said, warning that if the lay-offs continue on such a high scale, the economy will go on a “deep downward spiral”.

Mr Murphy's comments come after Donal O’Keeffe, chief executive of the Licensed Vintners Association said they need to strike agreements with the CEOs of AIB, Bank of Ireland, and Ulster Bank to see “how we can work together through this unprecedented, unplanned, and almost unforeseeable scenario”.

The LVA represents 550 pubs and 12,500 pub staff of a total 50,000 pub workers in the country - many of whom won't have a job to go back to, Mr O'Keeffe warned.

"If we were closed to March 29 and got to reopen then it would be a manageable setback but if the closure went on for weeks and months the severity of that is far more acute.

“I have no doubt that there were pubs that closed last night that will never reopen again. And I have no doubt that the longer it goes on the worse it becomes,” he added.

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