Approval sought for Omicron aid for hotels
Cash aid for hotels looks likely to be approved this week, it has been revealed.
Finance Minister Conor Murphy told the Assembly he will put a paper before the Executive on Thursday to add hotels to the Omicron support fund.
The fund was introduced to support businesses hit by the winter Covid-19 surge.
More than 3,000 eligible hospitality operators have now been contacted to start the process after the initial rollout was pushed back by a week.
More than 3,200 businesses are eligible under the Omicron Hospitality Payment, with payments ranging from £10,000up to £20,000, depending in its rateable value.
On Monday MLAs were also told that Stormont’s departments had handed back £140.5 million unspent from their budgets. The biggest surrender came from the Department for the Economy (DfE), which handed back £50.3m, including almost £30m allocated for the Economic Recovery Action Plan (ERAP).
DfE also handed back £16.7m in unspent capital funding.
The Assembly heard that despite the size of the funding pot available, which had been significantly bolstered by significant Barnett funding from London, just over £100 million had been left unallocated following the January monitoring round.
