Fifty companies have gone through the Small Company Administrative Rescue Process since it launched two years ago, according to analysis by Azets Ireland.

That has seen 561 jobs being saved through the process so far, it said.

The SCARP regime was established in December 2021, offering cheaper, out-of-court route for small firms looking to restructure their debt.

Azets said 22 firms went through the process in its first year, with the number rising to 28 in the past 12 months.

However this is slightly lower than might have been anticipated.

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"I would have expected at this stage that, two years in, we would have something close to 70 cases and that's even with the advent the Government supports in the form of subsidies and the ability to warehouse taxes," said Dessie Morrow, corporate recovery partner at Azets Ireland.

"They've been really effective and it's to the State's credit that they've kept people in employment."

However with Revenue's debt warehousing scheme set to expire in May 2024, Mr Morrow expects more firms will have to consider the SCARP regime in the coming year.

"I think the world is going to change - we are going to see a take-up that will have to increase," he said. "The number of businesses that have taken steps to put in place a repayment plan for those warehoused liabilities has been very low.

"It may be part of the Irish psyche, there's a reluctance to engage early - but all of the professional advisers would say the best thing you can do is plan for that now - don't leave it to the cliff edge of the 30th of April."

Of the companies that have already gone through SCARP, more than half were Dublin-based, with almost three quarters of them being headquartered in Leinster.

This is in part due to the higher concentration of firms in that part of the country, but it also shows a reluctance in some regions to tackle solvency problems head-on.

"Insolvency is something that no business owner wants to face - putting your hand up saying you are in difficulty," Mr Morrow said. "There are local issues associated with that - and the insolvency numbers generally would be Dublin-skewed, they would be Leinster-skewed, so that isn't surprising to me.

"But businesses right across the country are in difficulty - there's no doubt about that."

Meanwhile firms in the hospitality and retail, construction and advertiser sectors have made up the majority of SCARP cases - though Mr Morrow said firms from every part of the economy have benefitted from its availability.

"We've pretty much seen every facet of Irish businesses affected in some way and some of those have taken up the option of going through SCARP in an attempt to save their businesses," he said. "You need to have a reasonable prospect of surviving, so if you have no trade or limited trade it's very challenging that you're going to come out the other side of it.

"Obviously hospitality and retail lend themselves to having a trade and having an income and that creates a platform to be able to service debt."