Stormont didn't bring in compensation for customers without power - unlike rest of UK

​On Monday, the deputy First Minister said “we see no reason” why Northern Ireland Electricity (NIE) shouldn’t compensate customers here, as had happened in Scotland after the same storm.

However, on Tuesday the BBC’s Nolan Show revealed that there is no equivalent in the province to regulations which require energy companies to make pay-outs in Great Britain.

The programme played an interview with NIE’s operations director Alex Houston, who said regulations say the body does not need to make payments to customers.

The programme also played an interview with NIE’s managing director Derek Hynes, who said the rules in GB were “changed around those guaranteed standards a number of years ago”.

He added: “So what we would like to do is implement something similar in Northern Ireland to reflect the changes that have happened around those guaranteed standards, so that people have certainty around what their expectations are in the event of a storm or in the event of significant disruption to electricity”.

The News Letter asked Stormont’s Department of Economy why regulations to compensate customers during power cuts - similar to those available in Great Britain - were not introduced in Northern Ireland.

At the time of going to print the department had not responded.

Last year Stormont faced criticism from apartment owners in Belfast when their attempts to claim compensation for structural problems with the building were struck out.

The law here meant that there was a six year limit on any such applications – a limit which had been extended in England and Wales but not here.

The Assembly ultimately backed retrospective legislation to allow the apartment owners to pursue their case. The residents had been out of their homes since 2019. The Defective Premises Act (NI) was subsequently passed to increase the time limit.