MLAs are debating the plan to cut the cost of the RHI scheme "without proper scrutiny and with an election looming", Green Party leader Steven Agnew says.

He says he cannot look at the assessment by the examiner of statutory rules of the proposals without concluding that "this is a gamble".

The North Down MLA says he believes "a deliberate decision was made" not to introduce cost controls in the original RHI scheme.

He says DUP leader and former firs minister Arlene Foster did not stand aside to allow for an investigation into the scandal, in spite the precedent set by her predecessor Peter Robinson.

Mr Agnew says it is "a sad day when Peter Robinson is being held up as the pinnacle of respect".

That remark prompts a verbal rap across the knuckles from Deputy Speaker Danny Kennedy.

Conor Macauley
BBC News NI Environment Correspondent

Northern Ireland's biggest manufacturer of wood pellets manufacturer says it shared information about proposed tariff changes in the RHI scheme months before they were officially announced.

Balcas, based in Ballinamallard, in County Fermanagh, says there was "nothing sinister" in the move.

Image source, Thinkstock

It was not aware the information it had received was confidential, it adds.

Last week, the top civil servant at the Department for the Economy Dr Andrew McCormick said "premature information" had been released to the renewables industry about the planned changes and that may have had a significant impact on adding to the scheme's projected £490m overspend.

Justin McNulty of the SDLP says the RHI scheme in Northern Ireland was been set up in a way that favours wood pellets, which are a "globally-traded" fuel.

The Newry and Armagh representative says 80% of boilers in Great Britain are fired with woodchip, a fuel which is better for the environment.

He says woodchip "can be produced locally by any farmer, carpenter's workshop, willow grower, garden centre or wood yard".

"Every scrap of paper" linked to the RHI scheme should be released to the public, Christopher Stalford tells the assembly.

Image source, Thinkstock

He says people should be allowed "full disclosure" and the chance to "judge for themselves" who is to blame for the scandal.

"It is not in the interests of any of us that the reputation of politics and those who engage in it should be damaged or maligned," the DUP representative adds.

Sinn Féin "decided that they would rather crash the institutions than deal with the problem that has been presented", the DUP's Christopher Stalford says.

"Never again," he goes on, "can the democratic institutions of Northern Ireland be threatened by one party walking away.

"This has been an inglorious end to a brief term of devolution."

He blames the party's actions for denying MLAs the chance to give full scrutiny of the RHI cost mitigation plan, and says its MLAs "don't give two figs" about solving the crisis at Stormont.

Regulations to cut the cost of the RHI scheme are needed because "terminally ill children are being sent away from our hospitals", Jonathan Bell tells MLAs.

"I hope future generations of children and our health service will not be deprived of the funding it needs," he says.

The Strangford DUP MLA he makes "no apology for telling the truth" and concludes by quoting Martin Luther: "Peace if possible but truth at all costs."

Jonathan Bell says a fellow DUP MLA told him the RHI scheme was being kept open because party adviser Timothy Johnston's brother was one of the people installing the biomass boilers that were funded by the scheme.

But he stops there and says: "If these members to the left have information then they've got not to try and filter it through me, they've got to stand up and tell it like I had to stand up and tell it.

"It's the hardest thing to do, I can tell you."

Image source, Thinkstock

Deputy Speaker Danny Kennedy intervenes to warn Mr Bell that his views are "expressed with due care", even though parliamentary privilege protects him from legal action over what he alleges in the chamber.

Outside the chamber, the DUP respond to Mr Bell's remarks by saying: "For the avoidance of doubt, Timothy Johnston's brother does not, nor never has installed boilers, does not work in this sector and has not been involved in any RHI issues whatsoever.

"We challenge Mr Bell to produce a shred of evidence outside the chamber."

It will be for the public to decide whether Jonathan Bell's political career is finished or not, the DUP MLA says, suggesting that he will stand in March's assembly election.

He says someone had to "shine a light" on the "mess" of the RHI scandal: "It fell to me, I don't know why.

"I didn't seek it, I didn't want it - didn't want to do it. twenty years of loyalty to a party should show I'm a fairly loyal person."

He goes on to say that the cost-cutting regulations for the RHI scheme "are perhaps the first step in getting that mess sorted out".

Jonathan Bell says he wanted all of the information linked to the RHI scheme during his time as minister to be made available to him before he spoke in today's debate, but the Department for the Economy has not responded to him.

Image source, DfE

"You may hide information from me, but you will not hide the information from judge-led inquiry," the DUP MLA adds.

MLAs should support Economy Minister Simon Hamilton's cost-cutting plan for the RHI scheme, Jonathan Bell says.

But he says he has "serious reservations" about claims by Mr Hamilton and former first minister Arlene Foster that mitigation measures will bring the cost of the scheme to the Stormont budget "down to zero".

He vows that "every word" has has said in the assembly chamber "will be repeated with my hand on the Bible" at a public inquiry.

Suspended DUP MLA Jonathan Bell rises to speak on the RHI debate and begins by telling the chamber he is going to "reveal further information" that he wants to take to a public inquiry into scandal.

Mr Bell is a former enterprise minister who was responsible for the scheme in 2015 and 2016, and last month he made sensational allegations in an interview with the BBC's Stephen Nolan regarding the role of Mrs Foster and top DUP advisers.

He told the BBC that the aides "intervened" to prevent the closure of the scheme at a crucial time, and had it been shut down when he had asked the projected extra £490m cost to taxpayers could have been avoided.  

The Strangford representative tells the assembly today that the RHI scandal it is the "greatest financial scandal Northern Ireland has had to face since its conception".

He believes that if he hadn't spoken to media the , the cost controls plan that MLAs are debating "would not be before us now".

UUP MLA and Public Accounts Committee chair Robin Swann (below) asks Trevor Lunn if the whistleblower's warnings had been heeded "we wouldn't be here today in this situation".

"I absolutely agree," the Alliance Party MLA says.

Ulster Unionist Alan Chambers says the regulations were brought to the house last week "with total disregard to the due process or of being scrutinised by the Economy Committee and the official examiner".

His judgement is that "this plan smacks of being a desperate measure".

Trevor Lunn speaks about a whistleblower who notified the minister and the department about problems related to the scheme.

"At the PAC last week the DUP members tried to infer that the lady was really interested in a business opportunity," the Alliance Party MLA says.

"That is totally unfair to somebody who came forward as a concerned citizen," he adds.

Alliance Party MLA Trevor Lunn, a member of Stormont's Public Accounts Committee, which is invetsigating the RHI scheme,  says he is "very glad to get the chance to speak openly" about it.

"We're not going to oppose the implementation of these regulations," he says of his party, but he adds: "I say that with considerable reservations".

The Lagan Valley representative says "there are serious doubts" about the feasibility of applying the regulations and whether they are legal.

"You're trying to frame a regulation here which breached a legal contact that people have taken out in good faith," he says.

The media has "ridiculed and slammed and smeared" businesses with its "sensationalism" in its reporting of the RHI scandal, the DUP's Paul Frew says.

He says the press has painted reputable businesses with "pound signs and shame" when they have emerged as beneficiaries of the initiative.

Image source, PA

"The media have a lot to answer for in this regard," he says.

"I always think something happened to the media," he adds, "where media stopped reporting the news and started wanting to b the news."

Deputy Speaker Danny Kennedy intervenes to "remind the member this is not an election forum... yet".  

Oppositon parties are using the RHI scandal to "try and get a scalp", the DUP's Paul Frew says.

He says he is annoyed by the "white noise" coming from some MLAs, and he adds that the opposition sees it as its job to "scrutinise and harass" the executive.

UUP leader Mike Nesbitt takes issue with the use of the word "harass".

Mr Frew points to what he describes as "attacks on some out our members and on our leader" over the RHI scheme and says: "We'll let the public decide if harass is one of the words that can be used to describe what has happened over the lst number of weeks."

There are facts, hyperbole, loose language and "too much noise that isn't actually fact" surrounding the RHI scandal, the DUP MLA Paul Frew tells the assembly.

But he says one fact is that the assembly is "coming down" and action needs to be taken now to cut the cost of the RHI scheme.

Green Party leader Steven Agnew says he is working on the basis that the assembly will return after the election and the political crisis is resolved and there will be time then to consider the mitigation plan further.

But Mr Frew says responds in an ominous tone: "I congratulate the man for his optimism - I wish I shared it.

The North Antrim MLA says the the assembly's "chances have been shot" by Sinn Féin's stance in the crisis, and he adds: "I don't see this place coming back any time soon."

A lack of a consultation process over the RHI cost rescue plan leaves it on "very thin ice", the SDLP's Sinéad Bradley tells the assembly.

MLAs cannot "brush over" the fact there a consultation has not taken place, and it is a "serious flaw" to "circumnavigate any process of consultation".

The legal strength of the plan has been weakened by the lack of consultation, the South Down MLA says.

Approving the legislation to amend the scheme will "lower the bar" of law-making in Northern Ireland, will set a "very dangerous precedent", and will lead to a "doomy future for this house".

Ms Bradley says the SDLP will be "measured" and will take adopt a "very cautious approach" for the res of the debate.

With Question Time at an end, matters return to the debate on Economy Minister Simon Hamilton's proposals to mitigate the projected £490m cost of the RHI scheme.

The DUP and Sinn Féin are "on the wrong side" of the iron curtain of politics in Northern Ireland, SDLP MLA Sinéad Bradley tells the assembly.

She says those parties reserved information on the RHI scheme and other matters during their partnership in the Northern Ireland Executive, and she is rasping in her criticism of the way "business was done".

"There is no trust here - it has been lost by a drip effect from this executive over a very long time," she adds.

DUP MLA Alex Easton asks about the proposed closure of four outdoor education centres by the Education Authority (EA).

Education Minister Peter Weir says he cannot intervene directly in the decision but "it is clear that the widespread concerns".

Image source, Thinkstock

Mr Weir says he has written to the EA "urging a precautionary approach".

"The driver should be what is in the best interest of our young people," he adds.