ONE in seven people in Derry are claiming disability living allowance.
According to figures obtained by the BBC Spotlight NI programme, Derry has the highest number of DLA claimants across teh North.
This made it the ‘DLA capital of the North’.
The programme – by Ciaran Treacy – examined how the DUP and Sinn Fein had done a deal to agree on the Welfare Reform Bill.
Sinn Fein has said that “no one will suffer under the agreed welfare reforms” as long as the Executive remains in charge.
On Tuesday night, the Budget Bill passed its final stage in the Assembly.
The final debate on Stormont’s annual public spending programme began on Tuesday night and continued into the early hours of the morning.
Finance Minister Simon Hamilton referred to the difficult choices MLAs have faced over the past few months.
He said the bill passed in “perhaps the most challenging financial environment facing the executive and this assembly since devolution was restored.
At one point last year, following an impasse over welfare reform, First Minister Peter Robinson warned that Northern Ireland’s political structures were “no longer fit for purpose”.
However, as a result of December’s Stormont House Agreement, the Executive was given extra borrowing power and more flexibility on spending in a package worth almost £2bn.
The success of the deal depended on MLAs passing a budget, that means many departments face cuts to balance their books.
Mr Hamilton told the assembly there had been a requirement for departmental reductions “largely due to the delay in agreeing a way forward on welfare reform”.
The chairman of Stormont’s finance committee, Daithi McKay, said debate in earlier stages of the bill had recognised that “the legislative stages of the existing budget and financial processes are cumbersome and are in need of reform”.
“There is broad acceptance across all parties that an overhaul of existing processes is undertaken,” he said.
The Budget Bill was passed with cross-community consent.
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