Executive considering storm compensation law

The Northern Ireland Executive could make compensation a legal right for households which lose electricity supplies during extreme weather.

Northern Ireland is currently the only part of the UK which does not have such a compensation scheme.

That led to humiliation for Executive ministers in the wake of Storm Éowyn earlier this year.

The first and deputy first ministers had called for the grid owner Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) Networks to make voluntary “goodwill” payments, but it declined to do so.

Stormont’s Department for the Economy later issued a statement in defence of NIE saying “no other electricity company shareholders in Britain or Ireland have been asked to bear the cost of compensation for Storm Éowyn which was an unprecedented weather event.”

NIE’s only significant shareholder is the Irish government.

The department says the independent Utility Regulator will now revisit a consultation from 2023.

It considered initial compensation of £70 for loss of power with subsequent payments for every 12 hours a household is off supply, up to a cap of £700.

However there was not a final recommendation for the Executive to act on.

Announcing the new consultation, the Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald cautioned that a compensation scheme would have implications for all consumers.

“For example, having a smaller population than Britain, the cost of payments after a major storm would be shared among fewer people, meaning the cost to each consumer would be greater,” she said.

“The administrative costs of any scheme could potentially also be relatively high.”

Earlier this year, Archibald expressed scepticism about any scheme which would mean higher costs overall.

The regulator’s consultation will run between October and December with recommendations due to be presented in March 2026.

“My department will then, without delay, bring forward new regulations if required in response to any changes agreed by the Executive,” Archibald said.