DETAILS OF the new Government Employment Subsidy Scheme, which was extended to include non-exporting companies over two weeks ago, are still not available, despite the fact that Enterprise Ireland and the Department of Enterprise and Employment said details would be published last week.

Enterprise Ireland’s website currently carries no mention of the scheme.

Instead, details of the original scheme – which had a closing date of September 4th – are published.

A spokesperson for Enterprise Ireland, which has been administering the scheme on behalf of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, said yesterday that it had not received any updated information from the department.

A spokesman for the department said it is hoped that an announcement on the scheme would be made by the end of this week or early next week.

The Employment Subsidy Scheme was originally introduced by the Government in August to encourage companies to retain staff during the economic downturn.

Under the terms of the €250 million scheme, the Government provided a subsidy of €9,100 per qualifying employee to “vulnerable but viable” firms over a 15-month period.

One of the conditions of the scheme was that companies had to export 30 per cent of their production.

Two weeks ago, Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Coughlan announced that she was to broaden eligibility criteria for the scheme to include non-exporting companies, following a low take-up for the scheme and criticisms from business that the eligibility criteria were too restrictive and the application process prohibitively complex.

The first round of applications yielded approved subsidies of €68 million from a possible pool of €250 million.

Acknowledging that she was “surprised” that the uptake for the scheme had been lower than anticipated, Ms Coughlan said the second call for applications would “take into account some of the issues raised by businesses”.