An extra �6.3m is being allocated to help ease the crisis currently being experienced in the health service in Northern Ireland.

The new power-sharing executive at Stormont is to give an extra �5.5m to the service which they have found elsewhere in their budget.

The Department of Health is giving the remainder out of its existing budget.

The money will be divided into three areas.

Some �2.5m will be spent dealing with winter pressures, including the current crisis being experienced because of flu.

A further �0.8m of money from the Department of Health is to be targeted at the exceptional demand being placed on the service at the moment.

The announcement also includes �3m to be spent on "capital pressures", such as refurbishing hospital wards unexpectedly and replacing out-of-date equipment.

BBC NI Health Correspondent Dot Kirby said: "The money will be welcomed partly because it's mostly new money going into the health service, and partly because if it hadn't been found, then the minister Bairbre de Brun would have been forced into a cul de sac of making tough choices.

"She would have had to sort out the current health service problems - from within her existing budget. Social services would probably have suffered. "

It is expected the announcement will be welcomed by most political parties.

Financial problems

The announcement comes a day after the chairman of the assembly's health committee, said the current hospital beds crisis was caused by a long-term financial problem and not just the flu epidemic.

Dr Joe Hendron was speaking after the committee met the health minister in Belfast.

The crisis facing the health service has seen hospitals fully stretched to cope with emergency admissions as a result of the flu epidemic.

All non-emergency surgery at Belfast's Royal Victoria and Ulster Hospitals and Londonderry's Altnagelvin Hospital were postponed in a bid to deal with the situation.

Seriously ill patients suffering from respiratory and heart problems had to be treated on trollies and in armchairs in one hospital at the weekend.