The aim of the Outdoor Seating and Accessories scheme is to provide support to individual independent hospitality and tourism businesses towards the cost of equipment to provide additional outdoor seating and facilitate these individual independent businesses to increase their outdoor dining capacity for summer of 2021.

Applicants can apply for a grant of up to €4,000 (for up to 75% of the ex-VAT cost of equipment purchased) to assist in expenses incurred between 1 April 2020 and 30 September 2021.

As the country prepares to reopen in the coming months, a hot topic is the legality of requiring your staff to have the Covid-19 vaccination in order to return to the workplace. At present, there is no legislation that requires persons to vaccinate specifically for the purpose of returning to the workplace. There are a few exceptions where an employer can require staff members to vaccinate but these are limited to healthcare and possibly childcare environments.

There Is however, a framework you may follow to ensure your staff are safely following the best advice as per public health guidelines. The first step in this is to open the conversation with your staff members about their intention to vaccinate. This allows the employer to assess what percentage of employees intend on getting vaccinated. For employees who are unsure or do not wish to vaccinate, consider implementing procedures ​that best support the vaccination process.