British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be pressed when he visits Northern Ireland next week to provide the money to again defer the introduction of water charges, a Stormont minister said today.
Northern Ireland is missing out on the £1 billion lifeline of benefits the prime minister announced yesterday for people in Britain to combat rising fuel costs, so he will be urged to help in other ways.
With a 33 per cent rise in electricity bills and a near 20 per cent hike on gas charges announced this week for hard-pressed Northern Ireland households - already paying the highest charges in the UK - First Minister Peter Robinson raised hopes yesterday when he said consumers could be spared the added burden of water charges which are due to be introduced in the spring.
But it will have to be approved and financed by the Treasury.
Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy said they would be putting the case to Mr Brown when he visits Belfast.
Mr Murphy is the minister tasked with introducing the highly unpopular water charges and said he had been in discussions with colleagues about how to ease the growing cost of living burden.
“I think we have recognised that there is a significant downturn in the economic climate and people are facing very different circumstances, with rising fuel and food costs and the cost of living generally," he said.
“I have been discussing with some Executive colleagues for the last while some propositions to try to mitigate against what we would need to collect for water.
“We have discussed a number of options but of course it is dependent on the Treasury - unfortunately, so much of what we do here depends on the Treasury.”
He said they were looking in the first instance at a single-year deferral and then looking at the longer term.
The onus was on the Treasury to provide the cash to cover the decades of under-investment during direct rule, he said.
The money involved was “a drop in the ocean” compared to the vast sums being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Mr Murphy.
“We will be putting the case to Gordon Brown when he comes here next week. I think there has to be a recognition that people are facing even tougher times than when we were first forced to contemplate how we would gather up the money to pay for water and sewerage services.”
PA