The Minister for Enterprise has said there must be no "cliff edge" for businesses who will soon have to pay Revenue taxes that they warehoused during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Simon Coveney said the process of unwinding the debt has to be done in a business friendly way.
"My department obviously has to work within Government to make sure that as Revenue do what they need to do, and they're very efficient at doing that, that we do it in a way that's
business friendly and enterprise supporting," he said.
The tax debt warehousing scheme was introduced during the pandemic as a measure to help under pressure businesses with cash flow.
It allowed them to warehouse tax they owed to Revenue for a period, providing vital liquidity to many.
At its peak during 2022 over €3 billion of tax debt had been warehoused by over 105,000 businesses.
Today around 60,000 businesses still owe €1.8 billion to Revenue under the scheme, with 85% of the total held by only 10% of these businesses.
In October of last year, Revenue said it would extend the date for repayment of warehoused debt from January 1st 2023 to May 1st of this year.
By that date, those firms which owe money must either have repaid their warehoused debt in full or have entered into a payment arrangement to repay the debt over an agreed period of time.
But insolvency experts have warned that many already struggling businesses will be unable to make repayments, potentially leading to them going out of business.
Mr Coveney also defended a raft of Government policies that are being implemented from this year on, which business groups say are having the effect of driving up the cost of doing business.
Increases to the minimum wage, changes to sick leave entitlements and a new pension auto-enrolment scheme are among a range of Government measures due to take effect in 2024.
The minister said it is Government policy to make sure that "work pays".
"We want to make sure that people who work hard, people who are skilled and have qualifications get a reward for the work that they do," he said.
"I think of course we have to watch our competitiveness in that space, but we've also got to make sure that as the cost of living increases, that income has increased too, and that's a balance to try to get right."
"We listen to employers, we listen to trade unions, we listen to workers, we look at what's happening internationally."
