£100 winter fuel mitigation payments yet to reach pensioners warn Derry & Strabane reps

Following last September’s announcement by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, that only pensioners receiving pension credit would be eligible the £300 payment, Northern Ireland’s Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons, announced that £17 million in funding had become available.

The funding equates to around £100 per person, and council was told that payments would be made by March this year.

The Department for Communities (DfC) has an ongoing, 12-week Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) public consultation for the policy change, open until March 2, and at this month’s Health and Communities Committee meeting members were asked to approve the sending of council’s draft consultation response.

SDLP councillor Rory Farrell said the British Government’s removal of the payment was “shameful”, and Stormont’s mitigation plans were “too little, too late”.

“It’s £100 and not one pensioner across the North has received this yet,” he added.

“It’s unfortunate that we’re in this position, but I think pensioners need reassurance that they’re going to get this money, they’re going to get it quickly, and that it’s going to happen in future years.

“At the moment there’s a commitment for one year only, so we need reassurance and we hope there’s movement very quickly.”

Sinn Féin councillor Aisling Hutton said the cuts were made “without consideration of who was going to be affected and how people were going to be affected”, while People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin said it was “disgraceful” that the Executive “went along” with the cuts.

“The Executive didn’t do an EQIA of the repercussions, and they’re doing it belatedly because they came under pressure to,” he claimed, adding:

“There was a partial mitigation agreed of £17 million, but as we’ve discovered not a single penny of that has been distributed to anybody who needed it.

“So this is really a fiasco and once again shows the contempt that Westminster and Stormont have for vulnerable people across our society.”

UUP Alderman Derek Hussey said it was “absolutely horrendous that the burden of this is falling on Stormont as a result of a decision by Westminster”.

“I remind some in the chamber that their representatives actually sit on those Government benches,” he concluded. “ But it is a horrendous situation and I welcome the ongoing campaign to have restoration.”

Andrew Balfour,

Local Democracy Reporter.