People Before Profit Cllr Shaun Harkin,
“We are alarmed at the Utility Regulator’s announcement that households can expect another massive 30 per cent plus increase in gas and electricity costs.
The Consumer Council has also said there will be another massive increase in oil costs.
Hundreds of pounds more will be added to household bills in the coming months. This will cause a drastic increase in the number of people and families in fuel poverty.
For many people energy costs have already rocketed to unaffordable levels over the last year. This combined with the increased cost of food, rent, clothes and other necessities is causing greater stress for those already in hardship – and expanding massively the number of people in hardship.
This is already a crisis for the vulnerable, for low-paid workers and will push ever greater numbers of working families into poverty.
Instead of pay increases to cover rising costs – workers in all sectors are being asked to accept pay cuts. This is simply shameful.
Just as shamefully, the Stormont Executive has refused to acknowledge the seriousness of the cost of living crisis by ignoring calls to declare a hardship emergency with appropriate financial protections put in place.
We keep seeing last minute and inadequate responses from the Stormont Executive when they come under pressure to act. Financial help has come too late, isn’t enough and excludes too many people. We see Stormont departments returning tens of millions in funding instead of finding a way to utilise it to protect people.
The political establishment, nationalist and unionist, is complacent with handouts to elites and the politically connected.
This is an unsustainable situation. Many vulnerable people, workers and families could face destitution.
We need a real and sustained people power heave from workers and all communities across the north to defend people from hardship.”
