Stormont ministers look set to approve extra money to widen a support package for households which use home heating oil.

It's understood the executive has pledged £19m to go along with the £17m already set aside for the scheme from the UK government.

That will see up to 340,000 household receiving a £100 payment to go towards their heating oil bills.

It will apply to households with a combined income of £30,000 or less.

Details of the package were flagged earlier by Communities Minister Gordon Lyons whose department will take the lead in distributing the payments.

But it is unclear where the extra money will be found as all the Stormont departments are struggling under financial pressures.

Speaking before the executive met on Thursday Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician Lyons said he would be asking his colleagues for additional money to "make a different to people".

He said the £17m from Westminster was not sufficient.

He said if the scheme was approved it would still take "a couple to three months to put into place" before those affected would receive the money.

Lyons told The Nolan Show the scheme "would not help everyone" and urged the UK government to look at cutting fuel duty.

The issue of fuel costs has been discussed at the executive in the context of ongoing talks at the executive about a multi-year budget.

Ministers have repeatedly said they need additional resources from Westminster in order to balance their departmental budgets.

The government has provided the executive with additional funding worth £380m for public services over the next three years and has said that ministers must make "difficult" choices.

The first and deputy first ministers invited the Northern Ireland secretary to Thursday's executive meeting.

It is understood he will not be in Northern Ireland on Thursday, but will speak to the Stormont Finance Minister John O'Dowd from London.

O'Dowd's Sinn Féin colleague, Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald, said the executive had engaged with the British government and made the case more needed to be done.

She also said the £17m pledged by the UK government for home heating bills was insufficient.

"I will be wanting to work with my executive colleagues to get that support out to people as quickly as possible," she said.

"But clearly the executive does not have the firepower to be able to make the kind of meaningful intervention, the type of intervention that we saw in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine."

Fuel costs have soared globally as a result of the US-Israel war with Iran.

On Tuesday, some roads and motorways in Northern Ireland were blocked by farmers protesting over the hike in fuel, energy and fertiliser costs.

Last week, the first and deputy first ministers wrote to the prime minister asking for a package of measures to support those under pressure in Northern Ireland.

The executive does not have major financial levers to intervene, and has insisted the responsibility lies with London.

Discussions have been taking place since January in a bid to approve a budget for the next three financial years.

A multi-year budget would allow Stormont departments to plan longer-term spending and the executive has not agreed one for more than a decade.

But there are particularly acute pressures in the departments of health, education and justice that have made reaching agreement on it difficult.

A Stormont source said the executive was "stretched to breaking point" and that the current funding allocation was not enough over the next three years.

The executive is also exploring the option of agreeing a budget for 2026-27, but in the event that is the outcome, ministers would face returning to discussions before the end of the year to set a budget for 2027-28.

The timing of the next assembly election in May 2027 could complicate negotiations on a budget for that year.

Matthew O'Toole, leader of the opposition at the assembly, said the executive was "desperate to simply shift responsibility rather than agree with one another their priorities for the public in Northern Ireland".

"They could have been meeting with trade unions, farmers groups, business groups understanding the extent of the cost pressure and then go to the UK government and say 'this is the type of support we need to implement, we need your financial backing'," the Social Democratic and Labour Party politician told Good Morning Ulster.

"They haven't done any of that, their first approach has been to say, as it were, 'computer says no, go and talk to London'.

"So while I agree that the UK government is clearly responsible for things like fuel duty and has the fiscal firepower, the problem is the executive has at the very first time of asking, simply sought to shift blame."

It has repeatedly said the funding on offer to the executive is a "record settlement" from Westminster.

All the executive parties maintain that the allocation does not go far enough.

Stormont's finance minister has been making the case to the Treasury to restore the "stabilisation fund" - additional one-off funding which accompanied the restoration of devolution in 2024, which has now ended.

The Northern Ireland secretary has also continued to raise the prospect of Stormont carrying out its own methods of revenue raising, in order to help shore up public services.

This view was echoed in a research paper published by the Northern Ireland Assembly last month, which stated that significant revenue raising is "unavoidable".

However, proposals to do this such as introducing water charges and raising tuition fees have been widely rejected by the political parties so far.

Fuel prices have soared for the Wednesbury business since the US-Israel war with Iran began.

Fishermen in Devon and Cornwall say the increase is having a big impact on their services.

A scheme to cut bills for firms that are heavy energy users is being extended to cover an additional 3,000 businesses.

BBC's Simon Atkinson reports on the potential impact of the blaze, as the government warns of impacts to petrol production.

The fire has deepened fears over the nation's petrol supplies amid a global crunch.