MORE than 1,600 businesses in the north had submitted applications by teatime last night to a government support scheme offering a one-off grant of £25,000 to ease their financial hardship.
It came despite the web portal experiencing early technical difficulties and then crashing for around an hour shortly after its launch, causing frustration and anger for many users.
Unlike in Britain, where applicants can access funds within days, Northern Ireland firms may have to wait until May 13 for money to land in their accounts (it's taking up to 15 working days, which excludes weekends and a bank holiday).
And in another major difference to England and Scotland, businesses here with multiple premises meeting the rateable value criteria will only be eligible for one grant of £25,000.
Retailer Chris O'Reilly runs five Centra and Mace outlets in Belfast, where he employs 109 staff, and where footfall in his shops at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Queen's University in particular has plummeted by more than 80 per cent.
"I've five sets of overheads, five landlords, five rates bills, but just one grant coming in, which while a helpful safety net at this time, is nowhere near as generous and doesn't seem right compared with what's happening across the water," he told the Irish News.
"We've already had to furlough some staff and were losing others at an alarming rate, so much so that we've offered a 15 per cent pay increase just to have enough people able to keep us opened."
He applied for the grant, but added: "I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof now just waiting to see if we've been accepted, because one of the stipulations was a business address for a bank statement, and because we've multiple premises, we use a home address, so we've probably not met that criteria to the letter.
"Setting aside the technical issues, you wonder how well the system was road-tested when fails at such a simple administrative issue. I just have to wait now to see if I get an acceptance email."
Ken Sharpe, owner of the Salty Dog hotel and Boat House restaurant in Bangor, said the application process took him three hours to complete and the promised email confirmation didn’t arrive until after 2pm, leaving him wondering if his application had actually been received.
He said: “I don’t understand why the process here is so lengthy. I appreciate verification is required, but it is inexcusable for our Executive to take any longer than Westminster to process these vital funds in order for businesses here to pay their staff and suppliers.”
Meanwhile the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, where the government will cover 80 per cent of workers' wages up to £2,500 a month if they are furloughed, said applications flooded in yesterday at a rate of more than 200,000 an hour across the UK.
Upwards of 10,000 claims are thought to have been submitted by employers in Northern Ireland, who should receive the money within six working days of making an application, in time to be included in April pay packets.
