Fourth public hearing of inquiry into botched Renewable Heat Incentive scheme
Inquiry set up after public concern over scheme's huge projected overspend
Retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Patrick Coghlin chairing inquiry at Stormont
Departments for the Economy and Finance and Ofgem give opening statements
Key witnesses will start to give evidence later this month
Public evidence sessions expected to last until well into 2018
The opening week of the RHI Inquiry comes to an end and it has raised expectations of fascinating revelations to come when the witnesses give their evidence starting later this month.
Image source, Press EyeThe inquiry will not sit on Mondays, so the next session begins at 10:15 GMT on Tuesday.
Be sure to join us then, and in the meantime have a great weekend.
The sharing of data about the RHI scheme between Ofgem and DETI is likely to form an important part of the inquiry, as its senior counsel David Scoffield QC explained this week.
Mr Beer says that Ofgem provided the department with all of the information it needed to analyse how the scheme was running, and picks out one sample email from an Ofgem official to DETI's Peter Hutchinson.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe data supplied would have allowed DETI - "if it took the care to do so" - to understand whether the scheme was running according to plan, says Mr Beer.
He also points out that Mr Hutchinson has told the inquiry that the information required by his department was received.
Mr Beer turns to the absence of cost controls in the RHI scheme, saying that Ofgem "warned" DETI about the matter in legal reviews.
"They were also warned on other occasions in the course of the work on the feasibility study," he says.
Image source, RHI InquiryHe also points out that the government energy minister wrote to the then DETI minister Arlene Foster to inform her that his department was developing cost control policy for the Great Britain scheme.
He said the plan was "designed to ensure that RHI remains financially sustainable and provides value for money for the taxpayer".
The final regulations for the RHI scheme in 2012 "contained the errors and risks that had been identified" by Ofgem almost a year earlier, says Mr Beer.
He points to a reference today by the lawyer for the Department for the Economy - formerly DETI - to the "benefit of hindsight".
That phrase is a familiar one in public inquiries, he says.
"Ofgem had the benefit of foresight and pointed out the problems," he adds.
Mr Beer points to several "red flags or warnings" that were issued by Ofgem officials to DETI about the original RHI regulations, as contained in documents he presents to the inquiry.
He says that amendments were suggested on several aspects of the scheme that would have tightened the rules, adding measures that would have meant the eventual £700m overspend would be avoided.
Image source, RHI InquiryThose changes would, among other things, have helped to prevent the so-called gaming of the scheme - that is, the installation of multiple small boilers instead of one large, more efficient boilers in order to collect a higher tariff on offer.
The documents prove, he says, that Ofgem warned of the "inherent risks" but far as it can see, DETI did not take its "clear advice".
Mr Beer recaps previous reports and investigations into the RHI scheme in his explaining of some of the initiative's flaws.
He returns to a memorable line from former Sinn Féin MLA Oliver McMullan at last year's inquiry by the Northern Ireland Assembly's Public Accounts Committee.
Image source, Getty ImagesHe asked the Ofgem officials who were appearing before the committee whether they had ever heard the phrase "skeletons in the cupboard".
"Well, this one here is dinosaurs in the roofspace," he added.
Ofgem gave "warnings in robust terms" to DETI about the flaws in the RHI scheme, says Mr Beer.
But he explains that the body "could not depart" from the legislation adopted by DETI because that would have been unlawful.
It could only administer the initiative, and he says that role meant that Ofgem could not "rewrite or fix the scheme."
"We do not come to the inquiry simply and bluntly to say: 'We told you so.'
But he adds that Ofgem "firmly advised the department not to proceed".
RHI scheme administrators Ofgem now has its say, with Jason Beer QC representing the body.
He explains that Ofgem runs the Great Britain RHI scheme, which preceded the Northern Ireland initiative, and which still exists.
Image source, RHI InquiryThere were a number of "significant problems" with the RHI scheme in Northern Ireland, he says.
The legislation behind the scheme "permits outcomes that jar with common sense, or which are undesirable given the underlying purpose" of a green energy scheme.
He insists that Ofgem explained the problems to DETI more than a year before the scheme came into effect.
In summing up, Ms Smith says that the Department of Finance "followed the correct and established procedures" regarding the RHI scheme.
Image source, DFPNI"The department would say that the evidence demonstrates that Department of Finance civil servants acted at all times with the standards expected in public life," she adds.
Stormont's finance department takes issue with evidence provided to the inquiry by a DETI official.
The official says it would been helpful if finance officials kept a database of projects run by other departments in order to issue reminders when their approval is due to end.
Image source, RHI InquiryDETI, of course, failed to secure renewed approval for the RHI scheme beyond March 2015.
But Ms Smith points out that each department is responsible for seeking approval its own projects.
Original finance approval for the RHI scheme was "conditional" and subject to DETI putting measures in place by the end of March 2015 to review and change it.
The first review was to start in 2014.
But Ms Smith says that the finance department has seen evidence that DETI advised its then minister Arlene Foster in 2013 that the review would actually be carried out after March 2015.
"While a review would still have been helpful, it was by then too late to avoid the lapse of the time-limited DFP approval," she tells the inquiry.
Had the review happened in 2014, the scheme's flaw would have came to light, she adds.
A memo from Ofgem to DETI making recommendations for the RHI scheme regulations when it was being created in 2012 is raised by Ms Smith.
She says the advice in that document was not followed through by DETI and had the Department of Finance and Personnel (DFP) been aware of that the business case for the scheme would likely not have been approved.
Image source, RHI InquiryShe also says that DETI officials told a casework committee considering the business case that there would be budget controls and "the ability to undertake emergency tariff reviews and close the scheme to new applicants".
It is "regrettable" that those measures were not put in place, says Ms Smith, and that inquiry will have to ask why.
Now is the turn of the Department of Finance (DF) to give its opening statement to the inquiry, provided by Christine Smith QC.
Image source, RHI InquiryShe says the department wants to emphasis that "it had no role to play in the design, operation or implementation of the RHI scheme save that it was asked to approve the original business case submitted by DETI".
"Confusion has bedevilled every stage of the RHI scheme", from civil service to ministerial level, according to Ms Murnaghan.
Combined with other factors, that confusion led to the "hackneyed cliche of a perfect storm", leading to the initiative's disastrous consequences.
Image source, RHI InquiryMs Murnaghan says that Stormont's Department for the Economy wants the inquiry to consider whether the actions of other bodies and individuals have contributed to the RH catastrophe.
"There were undoubtedly external and political factors that impacted on the department's ability to introduce solutions in a timely fashion," she concludes.
Here's an interesting analogy... Swiss cheese and the RHI scheme.
Image source, Getty ImagesMs Murnaghan says individual human errors, like the holes in a cheese, can't be prevented, but they should also never align to let problems slip through.
But in the case of the RHI scheme, the "Swiss cheese" holes of human error all fell into line with one another and that "allowed this scheme to run out of control"... ruining the fromage.
Ms Murnaghan turns to the subject of the departmental officials' relations with the special advisers - or spads - to the two DETI ministers during the scheme's lifetime, Arlene Foster and Jonathan Bell.
She says that whilst the supposed role of the spad is one of an independent adviser, "for all practical purposes the department proceeds on the basis that the spad speaks for the minister, and on the authority of the minister".
Image source, RHI InquiryHowever, "the department does not always know fully what the minister and his spad and indeed the wider political party know in relation to the workings of the RHI scheme".
The inquiry chairman Sir Patrick Coghlin intervenes with a wry observation: "That doesn't seem to me to be a very effective political situation."
There was a "strained" relationship between the DETI and the RHI scheme's administrators, Ofgem, says Ms Murnaghan.
The impact that those "tensions" had on the operation of the initiative "gravely concern" the department.
DETI "relied heavily" on Ofgem for the running of the scheme, but its role was "particularly unclear".
While the department accepts where it went wrong, Ms Murnaghan suggests Ofgem "will have to address" issues relating to the scandal.
There was a "conspiracy of silence" around the flaws of the RHI scheme that led to its catastrophic £700m overspend, says Ms Murnaghan.
That lasted for almost four years was broken only by Janette O'Hagan, who - as we heard yesterday - consistently raised concerns about the initiative's flaws with Stormont officials responsible for running it.
The full lessons of the scandal will only be learned if the "circumstances of and reasons for that silence" are understood, Ms Murnaghan adds.
Neasa Murnaghan QC begins her statement on behalf of the Department for the Economy, saying that it has "not flinched from accepting responsibility for its failings".
"The department is determined to ensure that the appropriate lessons are learnt and that all necessary changes are made in procedure, culture and behaviour," she adds.
Image source, RHI InquiryShe quotes from permanent secretary Dr Andrew McCormick's testimony to a Northern Ireland Assembly inquiry in January 2017: "Shame on us for not having spotted the problem until too late.
"However, there is also the significant issue of why people continued to burn and nobody told us."
There are three core participants in the RHI Inquiry and they will each present an hour-long opening statement today. They are:
Image source, PacemakerThey are core participants because, in the inquiry's view, each of those bodies had continued involvement throughout the lifetime of the RHI scheme.