NORTHERN IRELAND
Public Servants responsible for establishing and running Northern Ireland’s failed Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme will carry a heavy burden for the rest of their lives, the final day of the inquiry into the scheme was told.
Peter Coll QC, representing some officials at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), who set up and oversaw the scheme for three years, said the officials were “sorry that the public was not best served”.
However, he said the PS employees were not alone in shouldering the burden as there were errors made at every turn by those providing advice and scrutinising and administering the scheme and the problems resulting from it.
“One can see errors right throughout until urgent political steps were engaged in addressing problems towards the end,” Mr Coll said.
“There were missed opportunities to fix the scheme. The failings of the team are only part of the picture.”
He said the inquiry had taken a heavy personal toll on the officers involved, adding: “This is their life’s work at stake.”
Mr Coll was speaking for five PS employees, including Peter Hutchinson, who worked for DETI when the botched green energy scheme was set up in 2011 until to 2014.
The inquiry previously heard that Mr Hutchinson had no previous expertise in energy matters and received no specific training.
It was also told that DETI had only two dedicated PS staff working on the RHI, with Mr Hutchinson left alone to run the “complex and heavily loaded” scheme most of the time.
A similar scheme in England had 77 dedicated staff members.
Jeremy Johnson addressed the inquiry on behalf of four other DETI employees who took on the running of the RHI from 2013.
He said there was “no nine-to-five clock-watching culture” and pointed to the overwhelming evidence to testify to the non-stop, frenetic working environment, including email inboxes that were impossible to keep on top of and emails being sent in the early hours of the morning.
“The RHI catastrophe was not caused by a single or small team of officials,” Mr Johnson said.
“Ultimately, it was caused by a blinkered and misconceived decision to commit to a deeply flawed scheme without appropriate planning and resources.”
Belfast, 23 December 2018
