The new scheme will mean that around 300,000 low-income households will be eligible for a \u00a3100 pre-paid card, which can be used with home heating oil suppliers.<\/p>\n
Communities Minister Gordon Lyons has confirmed that it will be several months<\/a> before those eligible can receive their \u00a3100 oil heating payment.<\/p>\n We took to the streets of Belfast City Centre<\/a> to ask people about how the fuel crisis has affected them and whether the \u00a3100 payment is enough.<\/p>\n One person believed that people “cannot sustain” their lifestyle given the current fuel costs in the country. He also felt that the “government didn’t seem to be doing anything about it”. He went on to say that the fuel protest that we saw across Northern Ireland on Tuesday reminded him of the 90s and that “they need to happen again”.<\/p>\n He urged the government to do more than the \u00a3100 payment and believed that lowering fuel taxes would help much more.<\/p>\n A second added that the situation is “atrocious”, especially for those who drive a lot for work or have families. When asked about the \u00a3100 fuel voucher, he said: “I don’t think it is enough, especially when you have children at home”.<\/p>\n We also asked a student about the current fuel crisis and what the government have offered in terms of support, and she said she was largely unaffected and tried to use the bus as much as possible to help counter the rising costs. However, when asked what they thought of the help the government have offered, they agreed that they didn’t think what has been offered for someone living in “a bigger household” was enough.<\/p>\n The people of Belfast have spoken out(Image: Belfast Live)<\/p>\n One person who didn’t wish to appear on camera called it “a disgrace”, and that what has been offered was enough to support those who drive for a living.<\/p>\n Eligible households will be able to apply for the \u00a3100 prepaid card that can be used at heating oil suppliers. Approximately 500,000 homes in Northern Ireland rely on oil as a primary heating source.<\/p>\n Ministers say only one voucher will be available per household and will be for oil customers \u201cat this time\u201d.<\/p>\n Eligible groups identified as most vulnerable to increased heating oil costs include:<\/p>\n Households in receipt of income-related means tested benefits, namely Pension Credit, Universal Credit and Income Related Employment and Support Allowance;Households in receipt of Disability benefits;Pensioner households not in receipt of Pension Credit with income below \u00a330,000; andHouseholds on incomes below \u00a330,000 and not in receipt of income related benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n VIDEO CREDIT: Justin Kernoghan<\/p>\n For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here<\/a> and sign up to our daily newsletter<\/a> here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ministers say only one voucher will be available per eligible household and will be for oil customers only…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1123,1506,6902,7620,5,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-16506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-benefits","9":"tag-cost-of-living","10":"tag-fuel-protests","11":"tag-stormont","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116424785480247008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_Fuel-vouchers.png\")
<\/p>\n