The Northern Ireland Executive will hold a special meeting this morning where it is expected to finalise an economic aid package to tackle the credit crunch.
Ministers will meet at Stormont Castle to agree a package, with finance minister Nigel Dodds due to address the Assembly later today.
The Assembly is also to hold a special session — three days after its Christmas recess was supposed to have started — to debate the blueprint proposed by ministers.
But tensions have emerged between the parties on the best way forward, with the SDLP and Sinn Féin clashing after a cabinet meeting last Thursday.
The SDLP social development mMinister Margaret Ritchie had proposed a winter fuel package, based on the recommendations of a fuel poverty task force.
Her plans would see vulnerable sections of society receive cuts in their electricity bills to help them through the winter.
But Sinn Féin accused the SDLP of raising public expectations, despite the fact that the funding for the scheme was not tied down.
Republicans also objected to handing public money to Northern Ireland Electricity to fund the discount.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan dismissed the claims, however, and said that rival parties were isolating Ms Ritchie for political gain.
The row has soured relations ahead of today's meeting, but with pledges of cuts to gas and electricity charges by the energy companies already in the public domain, politicians hope today's announcement would persuade the public every effort was being made to tackle hardship.
Ms Ritchie warned over the weekend the SDLP would have to consider its continued presence in the power-sharing administration if she was prevented from doing her job by other ministers.
She said there had been difficult scenes around the Executive table over her plans for tackling fuel poverty.
Insisting she would not be bullied she added: "If there comes a time when Executive colleagues and others deliberately stop me from delivering, then that will give my party an opportunity, and myself, to consider our role in government.
"But at this particular point we haven't reached that point — we're still in government."
PA