WATCH: 'We need action now, not words' - Derry Against Fuel Poverty goup take protest to NI Office

Derry based pressure group, Derry Against Fuel Poverty, are currently protesting outside the Northern Ireland Office in Belfast.

Spokesperson Sinead Quinn said: "We've been asking when the Energy Bills Support Scheme would be rolled out in Northern Ireland now for months.

"Many MPs & MLAs have asked the question. Local representatives at Derry City & Strabane District Council have recently passed a motion to write to BEIS to ask the same question.

"People are sick at the lack of an answer."

She continued: "People in the rest of the UK have already received this support from the start of October.

"Obviously, had we had a sitting Stormont Executive we could have had a bespoke system that benefitted people here in a much better way. But that option was taken away from us by the DUP boycott of the institutions.

"In the absence of a better scheme, we demand a date for delivery of the existing scheme."

"All households are waiting on this support. All we are asking for is what Rishi Sunak and his successors promised.

"Chris Heaton Harris has a duty, as Secretary of State, to the people of Northern Ireland. He's been asked about the rollout of this scheme so many times without a definitive action.

"We need action now, not words."