£2m is to go towards a pilot boiler replacement scheme that is being introduced in NI.

It aims to benefit hundreds struggling to heat their homes and will also involve a reduced price for gas and electric that will also help fight fuel poverty.

More than 44% of people live in fuel poverty here, a figure that NI Social Development Minister Alex Attwood has said is more likely to rise than fall as time goes on.

Mr Attwood has just announced the new and innovative measures including a pilot boiler replacement scheme that targets those in greatest need and energy brokering agreements are also part of 'Warmer Healthier Homes - a new Fuel Poverty Strategy for Northern Ireland'.

Some 1,300 homes across Northern Ireland will get their boilers replaced in a £2m pilot scheme.

The Assembly is just passing new legislation to allow for energy brokering, which for the first time, will provide some control on the price of household fuel.

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Minister Attwood said: "Now, more than ever, government needs to exhaust every possibility in an effort to help people in need.

"Following on from the example of the Citizens Energy Corporation, established in the United States by Joe Kennedy and which has delivered millions of gallons of discount home heating oil to poor and elderly households; new legislation is just being passed here with the potential to deliver reduced gas and electricity costs for thousands of Housing Executive and Housing Association tenants," he said.

Minister Attwood continued: "More than 44% of people in Northern Ireland live in fuel poverty, a figure more likely to rise than fall as time goes on.

"People cannot afford to heat their homes adequately. People need help.

"This is a serious situation and one which requires a combined effort to combat."

Capital funding of £15m rising to16.5m has been allocated to the Warm Homes Scheme across the next four years which will be spent on private sector houses.

In addition, the NI Housing Executive is planning to spend £16m in 2011/12 from its maintenance budget on fuel poverty measures for its own houses - heating adaptations, heating replacements and thermal comfort improvements - and this level of maintenance expenditure is expected to continue in the following three years.

Joe Kennedy, son of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, has lent his support to the strategy and said: "Your work to provide energy assistance to low-income residents while increasing the energy efficiency of their boilers is both good social policy and morally the right thing to do.

"You should take pride in your efforts to shelter Northern Ireland's most vulnerable families from the high cost of fuel and to make their homes part of the green solution for a more liveable planet."

(BMcC/GK)