MORE than £5 million was spent last winter paying a Christmas bonus to social security claimants in the north.
A £10 one-off payment is made in early December to those on a range of qualifying criteria, including pensioners, carers and those receiving disability living allowance.
For people out of work and claiming employment support allowance, only those with sufficient national insurance contributions are awarded the money.
The £10 bonus was first introduced in 1972 and has remained unchanged, apart from 1975 and 1976 when no payment was made and 2008 when an additional £60 was paid.
A total of £5.16m was paid out on Christmas bonuses in December 2014.
The figures were released in response to an assembly question by Sinn Féin Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA Phil Flanagan.
He said he would like to see the bonus raised "in line with inflation" but "I don't know if the funds are there for that".
"A woman in her nineties came to me, saying that it hasn't changed for over 40 years. She was asking me what can you buy for £10 nowadays," he said.
"It should have been raised in line with inflation, and if it had it would be £126.40 now."
Asked whether the £5m would be better invested in public services, Mr Flanagan said: "It is currently money well spent to help people in dire need get Christmas over. Giving people on low incomes £10 at Christmas isn't exactly generous."
The Sinn Féin MLA added: "We need to move towards a system where people are looked after better in the winter months, and we also need to query why pensioners in Britain get the winter fuel payment but pensioners here don't."
In the Republic, a much more generous Christmas bonus has been partially restored this year, after being scrapped in 2009 at the height of the recession.
While claimants in the south previously received double payments at Christmas, they will now be given 75% of their normal weekly payment on top of their usual benefits.
This means that the average single pensioner will get €173 extra in their account this week, while those of working age will receive on average an additional €141.
In his response to Mr Flanagan's question, the social development minister Mervyn Storey said that "there are currently no plans to increase the value of the Christmas bonus."
