Stormont is in talks with the UK Treasury to secure a \u201cproper financial package\u201d for Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
The region\u2019s Finance Minister John O\u2019Dowd said the decision by the Stormont Executive last week to allocate money towards helping families struggling with rising energy costs will \u201cplace further pressures on the Executive budget\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he has had two meetings with Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn over the last week, adding there is a united front from the Executive over the budget.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI have presented two papers to the Executive in relation to the budget for the next three years, all my Executive colleagues are telling me that they can\u2019t deliver the services that are required within the confines of that budget, we won\u2019t be able to support the economy to the level that the economy needs supported either,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo on behalf of the Executive, I have been engaging with the British government over this week as have my officials\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI am satisfied that the British government are now listening to us but we now need to move quickly into the mode of where they giving the financial whereforall to this Executive to do the job that the Executive needs to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stormont ministers pledged \u00a319.2 million (\u20ac22 million) to go with \u00a317 million (\u20ac19.5 million) already set aside for the scheme from the UK government.<\/p>\n
The scheme will see up to 340,000 lower-income households receiving a \u00a3100 (\u20ac115) payment to go towards their heating oil bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking directly to the British government about securing a proper financial package for the Executive to allow us to fund public services, to support our economy and see us through what is going to continue to be a significant cost of living crisis for several months if not longer,\u201d Mr O\u2019Dowd said.<\/p>\n
Speaking on the BBC\u2019s Sunday Politics Northern Ireland, Mr O\u2019Dowd said that despite the financial pressure the Stormont Executive is under, they made the decision that it is \u201cvitally important to support those families on low incomes\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have received a \u00a317 million pot from the British government, and the decision was made collectively at the Executive that given the scale of pressures bearing down on families that we would inject a further, up towards \u00a320 million into that fund,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat funding will come directly from our budget allocation, there is no other separate pot where that money can from, it\u2019s about decisions, and politics is about making decisions, and the Executive has made a decision in this instance that given the scale of pressures we will supplement that \u00a317 million.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Dowd went on to say the Executive \u201cdeserves recognition\u201d for making the decision to support families in terms of rising energy costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot plug every gap the British government creates, the Executive cannot afford to bail out the British government, that is the reality of the situation, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m involved in discussions with the British government about securing a proper funding package for this place so we can support our community and voluntary sector, so we can support our public services and we can support our economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stormont is in talks with the UK Treasury to secure a \u201cproper financial package\u201d for Northern Ireland. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-406770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}