THE Stormont Executive has announced £100 payments for low income households in the North to help tackle high fuel costs.
The vouchers will be for home heating and will be given to households with an income of £30,000 or less and those on benefits and state pensioners.
An estimated 300,000 households are set to benefit.
Who is eligible?
- Low-income households with an income of less than £30,000
- Those on income based benefits of disability benefits
- Those on State Pension
The announcement was made at a joint press conference between First Minister Michelle O'Neill, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and Communities Minister Gordon Lyons.
The First Minister said that the budget for the North was “at breaking point."
“Political choices being made in London are creating a really difficult atmosphere for our Executive to be able to work with,” she added.
“We have had invited Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State along today but he couldn’t make it due to diary arrangements, apparently.
“However, we as an Executive have today decided that we want to meet with Keir Starmer.
“We make a direct appeal to the British Prime Minister to meet with us in a cross-party delegation because the budget realities that we face are so challenging and so dire and so difficult that he needs to listen to the concerns that all of us are expressing on behalf of the people that we collectively serve.”
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said that the people of the North “cannot wait”.
"The Executive had decided to call on British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to act and to act now because the UK Government has the tools, it has the responsibility, and this is the moment to use both.
“Our message to the Prime Minister is simple: this cannot wait. People cannot wait.
“We need a comprehensive package of support, and we need it now, because behind every statistic is a family and behind every decision we make must be a determination to stand with them.”
