DUP lambasted over boycott at Derry meeting on £600 costs crisis payment

Prior to the council meeting, members of the Cost of Living Crisis Campaign who were unable to access the public gallery, held a protest outside the Guildhall with Joe Moore stating: “The failure of Westminster and Stormont to deliver this basic amount of support will threaten the lives of vulnerable people as temperatures hit freezing and put many households struggling with hardship under greater pressure.”

“We have MLAs in Stormont refusing to go to work but who are content to force people into destitution and content to see workers lose pay because they’re forced to take strike action. But they’ll get their pictures taken at food banks. They have no shame.”

Getting the meeting under way, Mayor, councillor Sandra Duffy said: “Everywhere I go people are talking about the cost of living crisis. In terms of the £600 payment that has been promised time and time again, we are now hearing it is going to be February or March and that is just unacceptable to anybody here in this city and district.”

Derry & Strabane Colr. Christopher Jackson.

“We saw the opening of our own Hardship Fund and how quickly that went and that demonstrates the level of need in this council area alone.”

The special meeting was held at the request of Sinn Féin Councillor Christopher Jackson who brought forward the motion expressing council’s concern that the energy support payment has not been made.

It also noted ‘that as a result of the DUP boycott of power sharing, responsibility for delivering the payment rests with the British government’.

He said: “Every single household is going to be £600 worse off this Christmas and it’s because one party refuses to recognise the result of a recent election and continues a pointless boycott of the Assembly.

“One party refuses to do their jobs and are point blank refusing to put money into people’s pockets.”

“It was only a matter of weeks ago the former Economy Minister promised people here they were going to get help in November. Now we find out none of that had any basis at all.

“Families, workers and small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges and there absolutely no support coming from Westminster and there is no ability for our local institutions to provide any meaningful support because of this one party.”

The Waterside elected representative spoke of the major need for support at this ‘time of crisis’ calling it ‘inexcusable’ that one political party could ignore their responsibilities.

Councillor Jackson added: “I can almost anticipate the usual response from Alderman Devenney that he won’t take lectures from me. He can choose to ignore me, he can choose to ignore our party, he can choose to ignore all the parties across this chamber but he can’t ignore the people we represent who are going to go cold and go hungry.

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin said: “I am very worried that people will die because they are in cold, freezing houses, because they can’t afford the price of food. We need action right now.”

Independent councillor Raymond Barr said the DUP’s stance was “causing severe hardship to those we represent.”

SDLP, Aontú and other reps also expressed concerns.

Aontu’s Emmet Doyle turned his attention to MLAs salaries saying: “There is an elephant in the room and that is again we are asking Westminster to provide £600 that was promised. £600 is less than an MLA makes in a week and none of the parties want to discuss the fact that since May, for 200 days in a row MLAs have been paid their full salaries.”

“I genuinely don’t understand how MLAs can go to an ATM at the end of the month and think they have earned a salary. How an MLA can stand with postal workers or university workers on a picket line and not be red faced is beyond me.”

Calling the lack of financial support an ‘absolute disgrace’ councillor Rory Farrell said:

“People in England have got it, people in Scotland have got it, people in Wales have got it and people in the Republic had a similar type of support. What we have had is broken promise after broken promise from the Tory government.

“Whilst the Tories should accept some responsibility, they have made it clear that this scheme, this support could have been a lot easier if we had a functioning Executive. This is the human impact, the real impact of the DUP’s boycott of the institutions in Stormont."

“The DUP need to realise that people are suffering, people are being crippled by the cost of living and inflation and there is no support coming out to working families and that’s down to one thing and that’s the DUP.”

DUP Alderman Keith Kerrigan said he ‘took on board that there are many people struggling’ before adding: “The funding is in place and the fact is that it is only the British Treasury who has the financial support to provide this money.

“This money has been implemented and put out directly in England, Scotland and Wales and it hasn’t needed to have the Welsh Assembly or to go through the Scottish Parliament, it’s been able to be paid out directly in these jurisdictions so why not here? The absence of the Executive did not prevent this, it is the government which has changed the goal posts and that’s the difficulty.”

Asking if there was ‘noone in the DUP prepared to speak out against the DUP policy’, Councillor Maeve O’Neill added: “It’s absolutely right we are slamming the DUP.”

Sinn Féin councillor John McGowan described comments on the issue from the DUP as a ‘smoke screen and nonsense’ to deflect from their refusal to sit in the Assembly.

Stating she takes the cost of living crisis ‘very seriously’, DUP Alderman Niree McMorris commented: “I know people are in need of warmth, I know people are in need of food, I understand that, I have total sympathy for it. I like everyone else am calling out for things to be done and actions to be taken.”

Re-emphasising her party colleague’s commented about the support payment being rolled out in England, Scotland and Wales she added: “We are sympathetic, we know the problems people are facing in the community, we want to resolve them but the DUP have made their position clear, they want a resolution in regards to the Protocol.”

Responding, Councillor Emma McGinley stated: “In terms of the Protocol, without the Brexit the DUP and Tories championed there wouldn’t be a Protocol, so Brexit is to blame for the issues. The DUP refuse to acknowledge that and as a result our constituents are suffering.”

The motion passed.