section_path: Economic impact by continent, region and country/Europe/Ireland
section_name: Ireland
paragraph_text: Ireland
  
  By mid-March, nearly 3% of Ireland's population—140,000 people (including 70,000 restaurant staff, 50,000 pub and bar staff)—had lost their jobs due to restrictions brought in to delay the virus's spread. The numbers of people in normally busy Dublin areas such as Grafton Street dropped by percentages in the sixties, seventies and eighties.
  
  On 16 March, Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection Regina Doherty announced the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment. Initially available for six weeks, it was extended for another nine weeks on 5 June. On 24 March, the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme was announced for a twelve-week run beginning on 26 March.
  
  On 15 May, Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation Heather Humphreys announced details of a new €250m "Restart Grant" which would give direct grant aid of between €2,000 and €10,000 to small businesses to help them with the costs associated with reopening and re-employing workers following the COVID-19 closures.
  
  On 22 May, the Government of Ireland had signed off on €6.8 billion in extra funding for the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, as it was due to reach this year's spending limit early the following month.
  
  On 23 July, the Government of Ireland launched a €7.4 billion July Jobs Stimulus package to boost economic recovery and get people back to work. The measures include the extension of the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment to April 2021, and the replacement of the Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme to the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme from September 2020 and will run until April 2021.
  
  On 7 September, it was announced that Ireland was now officially in recession after the economy shrank by 6.1% between April and June as the impact of COVID-19 brought the largest quarterly drop on record, following new figures published by the Central Statistics Office.