Northern government departments have been given an extra £75 million by the Finance Minister, Mr Mark Durkan, in a reallocation of new and unused funding.
One of the departments which gains most from the reallocation is the Department of Social Development, which will receive £10.5 million. Almost £2 million of this will help meet the cost of the disturbances this summer on the Shankill Road.
The feud between loyalist paramilitaries left hundreds of families homeless and much of the money will be spent on rehousing these families and on the purchase of houses left vacant in the area because of intimidation.
The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety will receive £17 million; almost £3 million of this will be aimed at alleviating winter pressures. Over £1 million will be spent on hospital fuel costs, £500,000 goes to the Omagh Bomb Trauma Centre, £4.1 million is to be spent on hospital capital programmes and £500,000 on the training of nurses.
The Department of Education will receive an additional £10 million, with £5.6 million going to school repairs, £1.5 million to new reading schemes, £1.5 million to school fuel costs, £1 million to school buses and £350,000 to a review of post-primary education.
The Minister said that £40 million of the new money came from unexpected receipts, with the largest single sum, £20 million, arising from the sale of houses owned by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.
He also announced that the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment is to receive £8.4 million, with £4 million being allocated to student finance and £3 million for redundancy payments at the Harland & Wolff shipyard.
The Department of Agriculture receives £6.7 million; £3.4 million of this is for disease compensation payments.
The Department of Regional Development was given almost £5 million, with £1.5 million set aside to deal with the costs of sewer flooding in Belfast during recent rainstorms and £250,000 allocated to pay costs incurred by the cryptosporidium outbreak in water supplies in August. The Rathlin Island Ferry Service received £190,000.
Mr Durkan gave the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure £1.2 million, including £700,000 for public libraries.
The Department of the Environment will receive £1.7 million, including funding for historic buildings.
The Minister's own department received £175,000 for European Union programmes while the First and Deputy First Ministers' office got an extra £200,000 to go towards its victims' programmes.