Almost €4 million has been paid out to farmers and agri-businesses under the government’s Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme (TBESS).
The latest statistics published today (Thursday, August 3) by Revenue show that as of July 31, 30,138 businesses across all sectors had registered for the scheme.
26,038 of these have commenced the claim process, 18,330 businesses have fully completed claims, while 7,708 have claims in process.
2,514 registrations for the government scheme were made from the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector by July 31.
2,745 claims from the sector have been approved by Revenue to receive the support.
The data shows that the value of approved claims is €3.98 million, and the value of paid claims stands at €3.93 million.
TBESS
According to Revenue, 1,107 approved claims in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sector related to enterprises with no employees.
1,308 approved claimed related to businesses with 1-9 employees, 272 had 10-49 employees, while 67 had over 50 employees.
TBESS was introduced to support qualifying businesses with increases in their electricity or natural gas (energy) costs.
The scheme, which is being administered by Revenue, provides for a cash payment to qualifying businesses.
Under the revised terms of the scheme a business can make a claim if it is tax compliant, carries on a Case I trade or Case II profession, and has experienced a significant increase of 30% or more in its electricity and/or natural gas average unit price.
The TBESS operates in respect of energy costs for the period September 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023.
The deadline to submit claims in respect of each calendar month (referred to as a ‘claim period’) is September 30, 2023.
For eligible claim periods between September 2022 to February 2023 businesses are entitled to 40% of the increase in their bills.
From March 1 this increased to 50%, following approval from the EU Commission.