The High Court has rejected Fire Safety Security Advantage Limited’s challenge to Revenue assessments seeking repayment of €2,244,179.50 in Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) payments. The court held that the company could not establish eligibility by comparing turnover one month at a time with the corresponding month in 2019.
Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy delivered the judgment on 14 February 2025 in an appeal by way of case stated from a Tax Appeals Commission determination. The company, formerly Superior Group IRL Limited, had received the subsidies between July 2020 and August 2021. Revenue issued 14 assessments on 15 July 2022 seeking repayment of the full amount. The Commissioner upheld those assessments on 7 December 2023.
The company’s appeal to the Commissioner relied on retrospective calculations comparing actual turnover month by month. It argued that a fall of at least 30% in an individual month established eligibility for that month. The Commissioner found the calculations were not based on contemporaneous rolling reviews, and that the company had not shown the assessments were wrong. Revenue’s calculations, using the company’s figures across the relevant specified and corresponding periods, showed no 30% reduction for any specified period.
In the High Court, the company no longer pursued two of the three questions originally stated for the court: whether retrospective figures could support claims and whether the Commissioner could consider payments not covered by the assessments. The judge treated those questions as omitted. Retrospective figures remained relevant to the sole question argued, concerning the turnover comparison required by section 28B of the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020.
The court held that the statute required turnover across the entire specified period to be compared with turnover across the corresponding period. It found no basis for qualifying by showing a 30% fall in a particular month compared with that month in the corresponding period. The judge also concluded that the company had not established that it met the statutory criteria for any specified period, so the Commissioner was correct to reject its appeal against the assessments.
The court answered “No” to the remaining question: the Commissioner had not erred in interpreting the specified and corresponding periods or rejecting the month-by-month comparison. The judgment determined that point of law and upheld the Commissioner’s determination; it did not decide the two questions the company had withdrawn.