Back to Brendan's original question - should a government directly help burned-out businesses ?
I think that it all comes down to the micro- and macro-economics of each of the afflicted businesses, their impact on the region, on the national economy as a whole and on our society. That is how I think the state should decide what assistance, if any, ought to be given in these cases.
Now, in the immediate aftermath of this kind of event, politicians and community leaders (elected and unelected) tend to be swayed by the emotion of the situation. It's easy to see why. Say 40 businesses times an average of 5 employees, that's 200 odd households without a breadwinner. Then there's the situation facing the business owners: total loss of fixed assets and stocks, loss of income to pay off immediate and long-term debts, loss of custom even if they manage to restart as customers are forced to find other suppliers, loss of primary business records (something important to tech-shy owners), loss of trained staff as ex-employees go off to the first job they can get, etc. Against many of these they can take out insurance. Against others there is no full recompense by insurance, e.g. the costumier's old outfits - there is just a lump sum valuation that they had to put on the insurance form. Small businesses usually only take out loss of personnel insurance for senior staff, even though every employee needing 1-2 years of actual experience to get up to speed is in fact a key staff member.
I think it's true that small startup businesses take out limited commercial insurance. That the state should somehow step in there and make up for the provisions not made by unwise owners, I'm not so sure. Incidentally, I would also be dubious of claimants who up to recently had limited insurance but suddenly upped their cover a short period before the fire. Doubtless, the insurance paymasters themselves will look into the latter cases - that's their job and it protects the rest of us from paying indirectly for insurance swindlers.
Beyond this pols are entitled to make special provision if the loss of a particular business has a knock-on effect on the viability of other important businesses. Let's pretend that the costumier provided outfits to film production studios in Ireland for Irish themed movies, ones requiring lots of period Irish outfits for their plausibility to viewers. Such outfits would not be available elsewhere. It is possible that a state employed assessor might deem the costumier's business one worth resurrecting purely to prevent the collapse of a growingly prosperous film industry in Ireland and therefore provide additional supports to get them back and running again. Likewise with a supplier of otherwise unavailable components to a company engaged in a major manufacturing contract for an overseas customer. Loss of this supplier will jeopardise not only this contract but also the reputation of the main contracting company as regards similar tenders. Obviously a 'conversation' must be made with the impacted industries/companies as to how they might better manage their commercially acute dependence on a single company: this kind of dependence is a major risk in itself and unacceptable.
A case for additional assistance might also be made for businesses whose services/products reflect well the skills, design, culture and values of this society and nation.
In all cases where assistance is thought prudent, a review of that decision's merits is made by a fresh team ahead of the payout. Post payout monitoring of payee companies should be done in all cases.
That's my essay at answering Brendan's question.
Obviously, my own personal take on this type of weekend workplace fire is one of annoyance at the level of fire protection and especially fire monitoring required - via the state's fire regulations - in workplaces. Sure, we don't want startups drowned in red tape and 'business-unfriendly' stipulations. But loss of life at work should not be tolerated. Neither should significant risk of loss of life. And neither should business owners be operating in a way that risks the employment of their staff, e.g. without adequate insurance to recover after plausible disaster scenarios. And most of all, we as a society we should not allow failing businesses to burn their way of out losses and into new profitable businesses with their payouts.