People will die if Winter Fuel payment cuts go ahead, Derry & Strabane special meeting told

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Age NI has said it has been inundated with calls from older people who are fearful following the ‘hammer blow’ of drastic restrictions which will deny many thousands of pensioners here their Winter Fuel Payment.

Derry City & Strabane District Council elected representatives were told at a special meeting on Tuesday that the means-tested measures introduced by the Labour Government and adopted in Northern Ireland will see millions of older people denied the payment going forward, and will lead to deaths this winter.

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The speakers who addressed the elected representatives at the meeting on Tuesday afternoon were Ellen Moore from the Freeze the Cuts Campaign, Lisa McGeady, Unite the Union Team Lead Organiser, and Brenda Kearns, Head of Advice and Information Service, Age NI.

In a series of presentations, which followed a protest outside the Guildhall, the various speakers spoke of the devastating and widespread impact the cuts being imposed will have.

The motion tabled by People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin (bottom right) was passed unanimously with other representatives also condemning the Winter Fuel Payment cuts. Among those who spoke at the meeting were SDLP Colr. Brian Tierney, Sinn Féin Colr. Patricia Logue, Independent Councillor Gary Donnelly, DUP Alderman Keith Kerrigan and Mayor of Derry & Strabane Colr. Lilian Seenoi Barr.The motion tabled by People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin (bottom right) was passed unanimously with other representatives also condemning the Winter Fuel Payment cuts. Among those who spoke at the meeting were SDLP Colr. Brian Tierney, Sinn Féin Colr. Patricia Logue, Independent Councillor Gary Donnelly, DUP Alderman Keith Kerrigan and Mayor of Derry & Strabane Colr. Lilian Seenoi Barr.
The motion tabled by People Before Profit Councillor Shaun Harkin (bottom right) was passed unanimously with other representatives also condemning the Winter Fuel Payment cuts. Among those who spoke at the meeting were SDLP Colr. Brian Tierney, Sinn Féin Colr. Patricia Logue, Independent Councillor Gary Donnelly, DUP Alderman Keith Kerrigan and Mayor of Derry & Strabane Colr. Lilian Seenoi Barr.

The Council unanimously backed a motion tabled by People Before Profit Councilor Shaun Harkin urging members to back Unite’s pledge calling for the reinstatement of the payment; if Labour refuses to do this, that the cut is fully mitigated by the NI Executive; and that Council assists with Age NI’s recommendations on removing barriers to benefit uptake among older people and older people’s services more generally.

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The Freeze The Cuts campaign is demanding a full reinstatement of the Winter Fuel Payment as a universal payment.

Its various member organisations have collectively launched a postcard campaign addressed to the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons to allow people to share their personal views and experiences as a result of the cut.

Its representative Ellen Moore introduced herself as a mother and grandmother and ‘no push over, not even for the so-called Labour Prime Minister who wants to tax the elderly’ rather than taxing energy companies or spending less on war.

Freeze The Cuts campaign is demanding a full reinstatement of the Winter Fuel Payment as a universal payment. Its various member organisations have collectively launched a postcard campaign addressed to the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons to allow people to share their personal views and experiences as a result of the cut.Freeze The Cuts campaign is demanding a full reinstatement of the Winter Fuel Payment as a universal payment. Its various member organisations have collectively launched a postcard campaign addressed to the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons to allow people to share their personal views and experiences as a result of the cut.
Freeze The Cuts campaign is demanding a full reinstatement of the Winter Fuel Payment as a universal payment. Its various member organisations have collectively launched a postcard campaign addressed to the Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons to allow people to share their personal views and experiences as a result of the cut.

She urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to “square up to the wealthy, not the elderly” and warned: "There are old people who are going to die this year all because of a bullying government.”

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Lisa McGeady from Unite concurred that the Labour party needed to introduce a wealth tax, and warned that older people will die needlessly this winter because of this “atrocious act towards some of the most vulnerable in our society”.

"Their reason of trying to save £1.2 billion from inherited £22 billion black hole is no justification to essentially send more of our pensioners into an already existing fuel poverty situation. Unite instead has proposed a 1% tax on the wealthiest billionaires to more than fill this black hole.

“A pensioner on as little as £220 per week will lose this payment.”

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Calling on Stormont to “reverse these cuts to the winter fuel payment” and not to follow the Labour Party, Lisa said Unite’s legal team were looking at judicial review cases to legally challenge the government.

“There’s almost a quarter of million pensioners in Northern Ireland that will suffer,” Lisa said. “Pensioners here routinely tell us that last year alone because of fuel poverty people were staying in bed until the afternoon, people were using buses and trains just to keep warm and spending time in libraries again because they simply couldn’t afford to heat their homes.

“The winter death statistics are released in January, and we know that because of this, if it goes ahead, deaths will occur because of people not been able to heat their homes."

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Brenda Kearns from Age NI said that the majority of older people are on a fixed income and for many, the Winter Fuel Payment has become something they depend on to keep their homes warm during the cold winter months.

Brenda said Age NI’s Advice and Information Service have been inundated with calls from older people ‘who are fearful, anxious, angry and in need of advice’ since the Winter Fuel Payment announcement.

“Age NI is concerned that means testing the Winter Fuel Payment, with virtually no notice, no equality impact assessment and no mitigating measures in place will cause serious harm to many thousands of older people this winter and into the future. We are urging the UK Government to think again. We are also calling on the NI Executive to explore measures to mitigate the potential harms of this UK government policy.”

Colr. Harkin said the level of harm this cut will cause was becoming clearer. “That is why I think the level of anger in society is getting wider and wider,” he said. “And I think that that is good and welcome because I think the Starmer government and all the devolved governments need to hear that loud and clear.”

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He added that it was a mistake for the NI Executive to just imitate Westminster immediately. “We can’t allow the Stormont Executive to simply shrug its shoulders and sit on its hands”.

SDLP Colr. Brian Tierney said only last year the Council initiated heat banks in community centres for people to go to when they couldn’t afford to put the heat on in their homes. “In this day and age that is an absolute disgrace,” he said. “That is the reason we have to get behind this campaign, through all our weight behind it to make sure this decision is reversed.”

Sinn Féin Councillor Patricia Logue said: “After the May election we got rid of the Conservatives but I just can’t believe now what is coming out of this so-called Labour government. They need to be looking at a wealth tax rather than taking much needed benefits away from those most in need.”

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DUP Alderman Keith Kerrigan described the cut as a “real slap in the teeth for pensioners”, and said there was consensus against the move in Northern Ireland.

Independent Councillor Gary Donnelly branded the Labour Party under Starmer ‘Tory-lite’, and said, regardless of who was driving it, the system itself needed to change. “We don’t have sovereignty to make our decisions in either part of the country – one part is run by Westminster and the other part is run by Europe. What is happening is imperialism and greed is once again picking on the most vulnerable in our society,” he said.

Mayor Lilian Seenoi Barr, who chaired the meeting, commended the campaign. “It beggars belief to imagine that a Labour government is the one that is leading with these cuts and is punishing older people. It is absolutely disgraceful,” Mayor Seenoi Barr said.

Colr. Harkin’s motion, which was seconded by SDLP Councillor Catherine McDaid, was passed unanimously.

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