A fuel poverty hardship fund has sparked a fierce row at Belfast City Hall over plans to allow families earning up to £60,000 to apply.
The debate lead to a bitter argument over the threshold for eligibility dividing the chamber with smaller parties accusing Sinn Féin and the DUP of a lack of fair process.
At Thursday’s full meeting of Belfast City Council, votes from Sinn Féin and the DUP pushed through a plan for households earning up to £60,000 a year to have the right to apply to receive a one-off £100 fuel hardship payment.
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The plan also involves the use of “local strategic partners", namely local community groups, to facilitate the distribution of the hardship fund before Christmas.
It was agreed by all parties to double the fund from £500,000 to £1,000,000. Each eligible household can apply for a £100 voucher towards their fuel bill.
Smaller parties including Alliance, the SDLP, the Greens, People Before Profit and the UUP all voted for a smaller eligibility threshold, namely £43,400 per year per household. Alliance, the SDLP, and People Before Profit also previously voted to use the city's advice centres to distribute the money rather than the Sinn Féin/DUP strategic partner method, which involves distribution from community groups in a model set up under emergency conditions at the start of the pandemic.
The Sinn Féin/DUP funding model, previously used over a divisive 'bonfire diversion' fund, was branded a political “carve-up” last year, while the local government auditor, Collette Kane, wrote to the council to “highlight concerns”.
Alliance, SDLP and Green Party state the model, which attracted criticism on issues of open process and transparency during the diversionary funding, is being carried over into the fuel hardship funding.
At the meeting Green Councillor Anthony Flynn tabled an amendment to have a household earnings limit of £43,400 per year for eligibility. This was voted down by Sinn Féin and the DUP.
Councillor Flynn told the chamber: “The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Office for National Statistics recently outlined in their UK report that the minimum income standards for households with two children is £43,400 in 2022. That is taking into account energy costs and other costs.”
He added: “In relation to the £60,000 criteria - that means a lot of our MLA’s would be able to apply for the funding stream, which I think is difficult in itself.” He said: “I just want to make sure those vouchers are given to the people most in need.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Ryan Murphy told the chamber: “Just for the avoidance of any doubt, there was no proposal put forward or even a rationale where we were trying to allow MLA’s to access this scheme. The concern we had was that with a £40,000 income, there are households out there with two working parents who could be earning anything in the region of £22,000 to £23,000 each, and still struggling with kids in the house.”
He added: “In terms of going with strategic partners, the rationale for this was how quickly we could get it out. We know the energy support payment being administered from the British government isn’t likely to come in until after the Christmas period in January. I think the sooner we can get this out the door the better.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Ciaran Beattie said: “When it comes to a hundred pound voucher for someone in need, some parties want them to beg for it. They want them to show the evidence they are poor, they want them to jump through hoops to tell them they are poor. That for us is sad.”
He added: “In terms of whether it is a city-wide partner or strategic partners - if you look at the example of Derry in the last few days, it’s been a mess. They picked a city-wide partner, who hadn’t had a contract with any gas providers, and there’s probably thousands of people in Derry now who won’t be able to access that scheme.
“The strategic partners have the local intelligence on the ground. And it is the city wide partners who go to strategic partners and ask for information as to who is in need in the community. For us it is about speed and impact.”
He added: “To set it at £43,000 will exclude a hell of a lot of people in this city, people who are working hard to put a roof over their heads, to feed their kids, and make sure their kids are in child care. We do not want to be prescriptive to those families.
“We don’t want to say, because you are struggling, and you are earning £50 more than your neighbour, you're not getting this help. That’s why we want to keep this as broad as possible, to make sure we help as many people as possible.”
SDLP Councillor Donal Lyon said: “I cannot support an option where eligibility is removed, where it is a free-for-all, a come-all-ye. Where constituents of mine in Malone Park would be eligible for this funding. That is outrageous.”
The Alliance Party is to meet the Audit Office next week to again raise the issue of accountability. Councillor Michael Long said after Thursday’s council meeting he was “concerned that the council's new Fuel Hardship Fund will be using partners which were identified in the first week of Covid for emergency distribution of funding in a crisis.”
He added: “Since then the same partners have been used again and again with no review of their performance and no open competition to allow other groups to become involved. This clearly is not a transparent or fair process and Alliance will continue our fair funding for all campaigns by asking the NI Audit Office to investigate the decisions.
“Council funding should always follow an open and transparent process and this clearly is not the case with this DUP/SF proposal.”
Around £4.6million has been distributed through these groups from the council in almost three years.
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