A STORMONT department has so far repaid almost £6.5m in sickness benefits owed to claimants following an underpayment blunder.
More than 1,000 of an estimated 3,500 claimants owed Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) benefits have so far received payments.
Each is owed an average of £5,800, the Department for Communities (DfC) confirmed in a letter to SDLP deputy leader Nichola Mallon.
The department aims to complete its review of all those owed ESA benefits by the beginning of April 2019.
ESA is paid to benefits claimants who have limited ability to work due to long-term chronic health conditions.
Last year a National Audit Office report found the British government's Department for Work and Pensions had in error "underpaid an estimated 70,000 people" in receipt of ESA since 2011.
DfC, which has responsibility for benefits in Northern Ireland, later estimated that more than 8,000 claimants in Northern Ireland were affected, but in June revised its estimate to 3,500.
In a letter to Ms Mallon, DfC's new permanent secretary Tracy Meharg confirmed the department has paid almost £6.5m in arrears to 1,104 ESA claimants, and the average arrears payment is £5,800.
Ms Mallon said the figures show the "significant scale of this benefits error".
"This ESA blunder and its potential impact on people across the north was made public only after the SDLP put questions to the departments," she said.
"It is welcome news that people are finally being paid, but they should never have missed out on this entitlement in the first place."
The North Belfast MLA expressed concern over DfC's level of communication about its progress in correcting the benefit payments error.
"If we had an assembly there would be full transparency, scrutiny and accountability around this process," she said.
"This was a massive blunder with huge costs. Lessons must be learnt from this appalling failure, especially as further changes through Universal Credit are rolled out in the absence of any executive or assembly to protect vulnerable people."
A DfC spokeswoman said: "The department began work at the beginning of July and all customers that may have been impacted by this error were identified and contacted.
"To date, just over 1,100 ESA customers have received arrears. There is no need for anyone to independently contact the department.
"We continue to receive and process information from all customers we have contacted and we remain on target to complete the exercise by April."
The department has previously said it has "pulled together a team to contact all individuals we believe may have been affected" and that it would "prioritise the most vulnerable".
