State must not withdraw business supports ‘abruptly’

The Government must withdraw Covid-19 supports for business on a "phased basis" for different sectors, as smaller businesses and those also exposed to Brexit face a particularly difficult period, Mark Kennedy, managing partner at Mazars Ireland, has said.

Mr Kennedy was speaking after the company published its full year results for 2020 which showed it increased revenue by 10 per cent from €36.3 million in 2019 to €40 million last year.

The business services firm now employs more than 500 professionals and a team of 30 partners. It saw increased revenues across audit and all service lines last year, despite the impact of the pandemic.

Concern

In terms of how Irish businesses have coped with Covid-19. Mr Kennedy said it was “very much a sectoral story”, but that there is universal concern among businesses in relation to an “abrupt” return to normal.

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“There is concern from clients that when it ends we don’t have a very abrupt scenario where everyone is expected to go back to normal,” he told The Irish Times. “That could have a very significant impact on business, whereas a phased approach would allow businesses to reorganise and restructure.

“The other thing that’s coming across quite strongly is the length of pandemic conditions has proved more psychologically wearing on teams and people. That’s something a lot of business owners are quite concerned about and they are trying to react to that.”

In terms of the damage, Mr Kennedy said smaller businesses “will find the transition difficult”.

“They don’t have the reserves or the strength to survive a shock,” he said. “That’s where the Government might put a bit of emphasis on trying to support those businesses because they create a huge amount of employment are essential parts of out supply chain.”

In terms of Mazars’, he said the firm enjoyed a “mixed year” but “certainly didn’t achieve the kind of targets we intended and hoped for”.

“We did see a certain amount of additional cost because of working in these conditions, and that continues so we’ve had to adapt to that,” he said. “It was part of our strategy not to change the shape of teams and to keep people employed, and we were successful in that.”

Internships

Mr Kennedy said the firm recruited “selectively” where there was need, and took on graduates, but struggled to maintain internships.

“It was difficult to maintain our internship programmes because they come in and learn by sitting beside you,” he said. “That was difficult and we weren’t really able to do that last year.”

He added that the firm will probably not return to working fulltime from the office when the pandemic has passed.

“I suspect we will not return to full in the office working in the way we were before,” he said. “That said, we do need offices. What you can’t do remotely is get the kind of collaborations that you need with teams. It’s harder to train people etc.

“I think what we’ll probably do is convert our space and use it in a different way going forward. We have offices in Limerick, Galway and Dublin, and we are reflecting at the moment on how much space we need in each, because we have seen our workforce spread around the country.

“I don’t think we’ll see everyone return on masse. I suspect a rhythm will form where people are in the office sometimes and we use the office space in a slightly different way going forward.”