Foster adviser linked to beneficiary of green energy ‘gravy train’

Pressure is mounting on DUP Minister Simon Hamilton to reveal the names of businesses that signed up to the controversial Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme.

The £1.2 billion green energy programme, overseen by First Minister Arlene Foster when she was enterprise, trade and investment minister, was scrapped earlier this year after deep flaws were identified.

In July, an audit office report highlighted widespread problems with the scheme which could contractually cost the Executive, and therefore the taxpayer, in excess of £400 million.

Northern Ireland’s scheme was modelled on Britain’s scheme to encourage farmers and businesses to switch from fossil fuel systems to biomass heating systems such as wood-burning boilers.

However, the absence of a cap on usage, present in Britain’s scheme, meant the more fuel that was burned the more profit the users made.

Whistleblowers

Whistleblowers have come forward to say they had highlighted the obvious flaws in the scheme to Ms Foster’s department, including knowledge of businesses with windows open, burning wood pellets around the clock.

A farmer is said to be receiving £1 million per year for heating an empty chicken shed and another business is expected to received £1.5 million per year for heating a previously unheated factory.

Ms Foster refused to accept any responsibility for the administration of the project, which has been branded by the SDLP as "potentially the biggest scandal since devolution began" in an October interview with the Irish News.

It emerged in the newspaper on Saturday that a brother of a DUP special adviser who helped Ms Foster oversee RHI is among those benefiting from the scheme.

The DUP has said Andrew Crawford’s brother, a poultry farmer, is an RHI claimant but insisted the DUP man, who now works with Agriculture Minister Michelle McIlveen, does not personally benefit from the scheme.

There is no suggestion that any of the individuals or organisations noted in this story are abusing the scheme.

The business of the department of trade, enterprise and investment has now been incorporated into the new economy ministry overseen by Ms Foster’s DUP colleague Simon Hamilton.

Mr Hamilton has said whistleblowers who came forward deserve an apology and that minimising the cost to the taxpayer is his department’s number one priority. However, he has so far refused to publish the list of beneficiaries, citing data protection legislation as a barrier to this.

SDLP Mid Ulster MLA Patsy McGlone, a former chair of the enterprise committee, told The Irish Times there must be full disclosure and transparency.

“The scheme itself has been well established now to be a gravy train,” he said.

“Both Ministers who oversaw it, Arlene Foster and Jonathan Bell, must explain how we arrived at this mess. All we have had from them about the scheme is utter silence.

“But more than that, given today’s revelation that the Minister’s special adviser’s family was a beneficiary of the scheme we now need to have full open disclosure as to who benefited from this scheme.