At about 3.15pm on Tuesday afternoon, Paschal Donohoe started quoting Seamus Heaney and, in doing so, two things were evident – his budget speech was coming to a close and he was very happy with his day’s work.

The current Wage Subsidy Scheme was due to expire at the end of the first quarter next year, but government have committed to keeping it in place until the end of 2021 at the earliest. This should be a significant help to agencies –e.g. if 10 of your staff qualify for the subsidy, it’s worth well over €100,000 per annum to your company. To qualify, your business needs to be down over 30% on 2019 spend, but the terms may be amended in future months.

If your business has been more severely hit and your income is down by over 80%, government have introduced a new subsidy (CRSS). This will pay your company up to €5,000 per week to help defray ongoing costs. It’s not yet clear what the exact criteria will be to qualify for this scheme, and this should be explained in the coming days.

At present, you can pay each employee a tax-free expense allowance of €3.20 per day for working from home. This may not seem much, but it can add up to over €800 per annum per person. If you haven’t built that into your remuneration package, you might consider doing so; it’s a tax-efficient way of getting money into the pockets of your staff. It also reflects the ‘new normal’ and would expect this allowance to be broadened in future budgets.

Revenue introduced this scheme some months ago where companies could defer their VAT and PAYE payments by 12 months and more. In effect, it is an interest-free loan. The scheme has been tweaked in the current budget to allow some other taxes to be deferred. If you’re not availing of this scheme you should give it serious consideration – it can be a big help to your cashflow in the coming year.

This won’t be relevant to all agencies but, if you’re a shareholder in your company, this CGT relief is a very positive move. At a time when agency mergers and acquisitions may come into vogue, it allows owners to consider transactions without being adversely affected tax-wise.

As well as the initiatives noted above, the VAT rate reduction to 9% for the hospitality sector should help restore some confidence and should also encourage consumers to start spending again. Household savings have increased by over €10 billion since the onset of Covid-19 and, if those purse strings can be loosened, it can only benefit our wider communications industry.

Paschal’s budget on Tuesday was based on the assumption that we will continue to live with Covid-19 throughout 2021, and that no vaccine will become available until 2022.

This caution is at odds with the views of many member agencies who believe that next year will see the start of the bounce back. I would be hopeful that they are right but, please, stay flexible and don’t ignore the many Covid-19 supports which will act as a lifeline if the glass turns out to be less than half-full.

Overall, I think it was a good budget for business and should give our industry confidence that the current government is committed to investment in economic recovery. While we should continue to be ambitious for growth, both creatively and financially, it’s also important to have that safety net in place.