An academic has said people could be left unable to heat their homes or buy enough food this winter as the cost of living crisis deepens.
Dr Ciara Fitzpatrick is a lecturer at Ulster University and has carried out voluntary work in the past in North Belfast with those at the sharp end of the poverty scale.
She was speaking after research from the University of York suggested 71.7% of households in Northern Ireland could be in fuel poverty by 2023, affecting 1.4 million people.
Read more: Cost of living poll: Tell us how rising inflation is affecting you and your family
The university's Social Policy Unit defined fuel poverty as spending more than 10% of net income on fuel.
"We've seen the fuel prices shooting up and we've got the lowest wages in the UK and actually the lowest savings as well," Dr Fitzpatrick told Belfast Live.
"We're going to see that coming to the fore in the winter time and it's really, really frightening.
"People are going to maybe be spending up to £70 a week on fuel and if you're a single person on Universal Credit, you might only be getting £70-75 a week, so how are you ever going to be able to make that stretch?
"We're going to see people going from poverty into complete destitution where they're not going to be able to afford the absolute basics that they need."
Dr Fitzpatrick said the ongoing crisis, coupled with the lack of devolved policies to tackle it could have fatal consequences.
"I was a volunteer at a charitable organisation in North Belfast and I still keep in touch with my fellow volunteers," she said.
"You're hearing increasingly serious stories of people not being able to turn on the electricity for two or three days at a time because it's run down and they just don't have the money.
"There's been a case recently where a gentleman hasn't been able to turn on his heat from November because he's had no money for gas.
"These people are living in Housing Executive or social housing properties that are old, they don't have good insulation, they maybe have old boilers that are running through the heat really quickly. It's just not sustainable.
"A lot of these people at home are going to face worsening chronic health conditions and people are going to die from this."
The academic is calling for Stormont politicians to resolve the current impasse and tackle the unprecedented crisis.
"The elephant in the room is the fact we've got no Executive, there's an awful lot of work that was left undone that would really have supported people in poverty and people facing into this winter of misery," she said.
"It's the simplest things throwing people into crisis, a washing machine or a fridge breaking down, and they don't have the money to buy a new one, that has a massive impact on their life.
"I sat on an expert panel and we recommended things like discretionary support grants up to three times a year for people in crisis, but that never got taken forward because Stormont stalled again.
"It's really quite worrying hearing politicians talking in recent days and weeks - you're really getting the sense that there doesn't seem to be any planning in place.
"They don't seem to be getting their heads together while the Executive is down, to get something put together for if we get an Executive back in October for example.
"There doesn't seem to be something that they can roll out immediately, which is worrying because if it isn't there, then it won't be in time to help people for this coming winter."
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