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A voucher program that would provide all Northern Ireland households with £ 200 to spend in local shops is one of the measures proposed by the Stormont Executive.
A budget of £ 95 million is being set aside for what is called the High Street Voucher Program.
Finance Minister Conor Murphy told the House this afternoon that it will be early next year before the plan goes into operation.
The Power-Sharing Executive is also protecting £ 150 million to provide companies with fee relief in the next financial year.
Manufacturing industries that have not benefited from the currently operating holiday rates will be able to access a new £ 20 million fund.
Existing funds for the hospitality sector will be rolled out during the two-week lockdown period starting next Friday. B & Bs that missed the previous packages are now on their way to receiving help under the new proposals.
Another significant tranche of funding, £ 44.3 million, will provide a £ 200 heating payment to disabled people with the highest rate of social security benefits and older people with pension credit.
£ 26.5 million is set aside to provide free payments for school meals during Christmas and during the mid-term holidays and Easter.
The disagreement between the DUP and the other four government parties had limited the Executive’s ability to respond to the second wave of the pandemic.
But last week, the DUP took a 180-degree turn and accepted scientific and medical advice that more restrictions were required.
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Over the weekend, Mr. Murphy and Finance Minister Diane Dodds and their officials met to develop a series of compensation plans for affected businesses.
Prime Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill were part of that dialogue.
The compensation measures plan is an effort to address widespread public criticism of the Executive’s performance in recent times.
The Health Department said three other people died from Covid-19 in Northern Ireland and 280 people tested positive.
Currently, 438 people are hospitalized for the coronavirus, 37 of them in intensive care.
On the other hand, the Northern Ireland health minister said relying solely on mass rapid tests in the period before Christmas would be a very risky strategy.
Robin Swann said he wanted the North to play a key role in the UK pilots on mass testing and has written to Health Secretary Matt Hancock requesting four million rapid tests.
He told the NI Assembly: “Reliance on massive testing would represent a high-risk approach in the run-up to Christmas.
“It may not be viable for logistical or trial supply reasons.”
He said it would require a “very high degree of public participation” and would present “enormous logistical challenges.”
There may be scope to direct more limited mass tests to high-risk areas.
“Mass testing is an exciting development and, coupled with a vaccine, offers great hope of breaking out of our nightmare.
“But it is not a panacea, and certainly not right now and certainly not without restrictions before Christmas.”
Swann also said that, for practical purposes, it is simply not possible to increase hospital capacity in the short to medium term.
“The key factor here is staffing and given the specialized skill set required, there is a very long wait time for this.
“While some marginal gains in capacity can be achieved in specific areas such as the UCI, this comes at the cost of reduced capacity in other parts of the system as it involves redeployment of existing staff.
“Also, when the doubling time for cases is seven to 10 days, even a doubling of hospital capacity when that can be achieved would buy only a limited period of relief before intervention is required.”
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