Renewable Heat Incentive Inquiry examining botched energy scheme
Former DETI official Peter Hutchinson returns for another day's questioning
Inquiry set up after public concern over scheme's huge projected overspend
Retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Patrick Coghlin chairing inquiry at Stormont
Public evidence sessions expected to last until well into 2018
Another of the most hands-on civil servants in the RHI scheme - Mr Hutchinson's former boss Fiona Hepper - will return to the hotseat tomorrow.
Image source, PacemakerJoin us tomorrow morning from 09:45 for more live coverage of the RHI Inquiry from at Stormont's Parliament Buildings.
Have a great evening...
BBC News Northern Ireland
Civil servants got a "clear warning" of a key problem in a botched green energy scheme, the inquiry was told.
It heard that the issue of multiple smaller boilers being installed to maximise subsidy receipts was raised with officials at DETI.
The warning was given by a group representing fuel suppliers in 2013, two years before the scheme imploded.
Civil servants and the ministers directing them need to be more realistic about what is possible with the time and resources at their disposal, says Mr Hutchinson.
Ministers should also be involved in policy-making within their departments, he adds.
Those, he says, are two of "undoubtedly a lot of lessons to be learned" from the RHI scheme debacle.
Image source, RHI InquirySpeaking on behalf of the inquiry panel, Dame Una O'Brien acknowledges "how phenomenally hard" Mr Hutchinson worked and his "prodigious output" on the RHI scheme.
It's an emotional moment for Mr Hutchinson - he's spent the guts of a week in the witness chair under close scrutiny in full public view and his questioning is finally at an end.
Mr Lunny takes the inquiry back to the handover document Mr Hutchinson prepared for his successor working on the RHI scheme.
It doesn't mention monitoring, the CEPA projection that the 10% renewable heat target would not be met, or cost controls in anything other than the briefest terms.
Image source, Getty Images"I've given them an outline of work for a number of months," Mr Hutchinson says in his defence.
"When I look at it I think it's quite detailed. It's more than I've ever received," he adds.
He returned to DETI for a meeting some months later with his successors to discuss the scheme, but their questions focused on the domestic initiative, and he can't recall if he asked how the non-domestic one was working at that point.
Mr Hutchinson says he was surprised that both he and Ms McCutcheon were being released from DETI at about the same time.
Mr Lunny asks if the question was ever raised about whether it was "sensible or safe" for that to happen, given their combined knowledge and experience of the RHI scheme.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe witness says he never raised it with Mr Mills, but Ms McCutcheon did, and he says: "I think she maybe suggested it wasn't the best idea."
Asked if he suggested there should've been a degree of continuity on the team working on the scheme due to some of the problems that needed attention, Mr Hutchinson says the "ramifications" of what could happen in his absence "weren't there" at the time.
"If I had seen what had happened after that yes, I'd say I wouldn't have left or maybe I wouldn't have joined in the first place."
Mr Hutchinson left DETI in May 2014, and a move to another Stormont department had been on his mind for several months.
He was given the go-ahead by Mr MIlls to take up a post at the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM).
Image source, Getty ImagesHis move was one solely for the development of his career and it was not a case that he was "trying to jump ship", he explains.
Ms McCutcheon - the only other person working directly on the RHI scheme - had also been granted a career break at the same time, meaning that there was what Mr Lunny describes as an "experience void" on the project at DETI.
DETI's core team working on the RHI scheme from the outset - Mr Hutchinson, Joanne McCutcheon and Fiona Hepper - all left the department between late-2013 and mid-2014.
Mr Hutchinson is asked whether Mr Mills - Ms Hepper's successor - was then the only energy division official who was aware of the need for a review of the entire scheme in 2014.
The witness says that was indeed the case - for anyone else to have found that out they would've need to have read a number of documents.
"You're confident that Mr Mills did know about it from the discussions you had had with him before you left?" asks Mr Lunny.
Mr Hutchinson says he only had one discussion with Mr Mills on the subject, and he thinks it would have been raised.
A crucial planned review of the RHI scheme in 2014 did not start because the staff working on it were "heavily involved in other things", says Mr Hutchinson.
Image source, Getty ImagesIt was discussed "infrequently" but never happened because "other work pressures took priority" and there may have been "no direction to start it".
He is unaware of any arrangements in place for a review when he was leaving the department in late-spring 2014.
A commitment had been made several times, as far back as 2011, to a review of the non-domestic RHI scheme, starting in January 2014.
Indeed, the Department of Finance and Personnel's letter of approval for the scheme made it clear that it was a requirement that a series of reviews be put in place.
Image source, RHI InquiryMr Hutchinson is asked what arrangements were put in place for the review during his time at DETI.
"I don't think there were any formal arrangements - you know it's not on a database," he replies.
It was "more a case of knowledge of the need for it", he adds.
Inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin says he has "not seen a shred of evidence" that suggests Mr Mills's view that the DETI minister decided to prioritise opening the domestic RHI scheme over adding cost controls to the non-domestic initiative.
Mr Lunny asks if Mr Hutchinson is aware of any document that sets out why the cost controls were "put off" in favour getting the domestic scheme up and running.
"No," says the witness.
Mr Mills will have to be asked why he made that statement, says Mr Lunny.
Mr Lunny jumps forward to a DETI casework committee minute from October 2015 that he says may cast some light on why the domestic RHI scheme was prioritised over cost controls.
Mr Mills was present and was asked about the trigger points for cost controls that were not implemented in 2013 and whether they should have been included.
Image source, RHI InquiryHe said "it was a ministerial decision to look at the domestic scheme rather than pushing through the trigger points on non-domestic".
Mr Lunny asks Mr Hutchinson if he knows who made the decision to "park" the other elements of the scheme's development in favour of the domestic initiative: "Was it the DETI officials or was it the minister?"
Mr Hutchinson says: "Certainly it wasn't the minister, you would see that in the submission."
There was pressure on DETI from stakeholders to get the domestic RHI scheme open because the department had fallen behind the stage the similar initiative in Great Britain was at, says Mr Hutchinson.
The domestic scheme "might have been a priority" for DETI, he adds, but that was not at the cost of "forget about everything else".
Image source, Getty Images"It was definitely seen as more deliverable than [changing] the non-domestic tariff at that stage, yes."
In his written statement to the inquiry, John Mills, then the head of DETI's energy division, says there was an "underestimation" of how long it would take to get the domestic scheme up and running and therefore "overly optimistic assessments of when" the changes to the non-domestic scheme could be made.
In its development of the RHI scheme, DETI had planned to expand the non-domestic initiative and add cost controls to it at the same time as introducing a similar scheme for domestic users.
The department's energy team made a submission to the minister, Mrs Foster, (below) in November 2013 that suggested that it could push ahead with getting the domestic scheme opened the next spring.
Image source, ReutersPlans for the non-domestic initiative could be left for later, it was suggested.
There was also no mention of cost controls for the non-domestic scheme in the submission to Mrs Foster.
Mr Lunny asks if that is evidence of a shift in DETI's priority to the domestic project, but Mr Hutcinson disagrees, explaining that there were "complexities" with the non-domestic scheme that meant it was being held up.
DETI's consultation on the development of the RHI scheme contained a novel proposal for a temporary cost control.
This would have seen a five-trigger mechanism ultimately resulting in the closure of both the domestic and non-domestic schemes, which Mr Lunny describes as "a less-demanding cost control" than full-blown digression.
Image source, RHI InquiryInquiry panel member Dame Una O'Brien intervenes to ask Mr Hutchinson: "Who crafted this?"
"I have to put my hand up again," he replies.
Inquiry panel member Dr Keith MacLean is surprised that there was "no real reaction" at DETI when CEPA predicted that the 10% renewable heat production target would not be met.
Image source, RHI Inquiry"Did the hands not go up?" he asks. "The thing is so fundamental and justified the money being spent."
"I don't recall anything specific," Mr Hutchinson says, adding that he agrees that "more could have been done".
As ad been the case before the RHI scheme was first opened in late-2012, CEPA was commissioned by DETI to carry out an economic appraisal on the planned changes to the initiative.
In June 2013, it delivered a report that projected that the scheme would not help Northern Ireland to achieve the target of producing 10% of its heat through by renewable sources by 2020.
Image source, Getty ImagesMr Hutchinson says DETI was "always aware the 10% target would be difficult" to meet.
A submission was sent to the DETI minister that same month about the development of the scheme, but it didn't mention that the key 10% target was now off the cards.
Mr Hutchinson has no explanation as to why that information was missing.
DETI commissioned the legal firm Arthur Cox in early-2013 to report on changes that DECC had made to its RHI scheme regarding cost controls.
The inquiry has heard evidence from Alan Bissett, who was a partner a Arthur Cox when it was asked to carry out the work.
Image source, Getty ImagesHe said the request seemed "odd" because he felt DETI would have been "in a better position" to find out that information than his firm was.
Mr Lunny asks Mr Hutchinson why the work couldn't have been done in-house by DETI, instead of paying lawyers to do it.
The witness explains that the staff working on the RHI scheme didn't have the time to do it and asking Arthur Cox to scrutinise DECC's changes would ensure "nothing would be missed" because they "maybe had a better eye for it than we would've had".
Back after the lunchtime break, Mr Lunny says the inquiry will look at monitoring of the RHI scheme and cost controls this afternoon.
After problems with a domestic energy generation scheme, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) introduced temporary cost controls its RHI scheme in Grea Britain that would allow the initiative to be suspended in-year.
Image source, DECCThis was followed by the introduction in April 2013 of a measure - known as digression - that allowed the tariff to be lowered in response to increased demand.
Mr Hutchinson confirms that DETI was keeping a close eye on developments with the GB scheme.
On his last day at DETI, Mr Hutchinson prepared an update for the Northern Ireland's Enterprise Committee on the RHI scheme.
It was sent to the department's minister Arlene Foster, its permanent secretary David Sterling, among others.
In it, he outlined that the majority of biomass boilers accredited through the scheme were collecting the most lucrative subsidy on offer, and he wrote that it "may be appropriate to review" the rate of that subsidy, given evidence that had emerged but there was no further detail as to why.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe review never happened, though, and Mr Hutchinson is asked why the committee nor the minister was not told in more detail why a review should happen.
He says he felt the need for the review should first have been discussed by DETI's energy team, but accepts it would've been possible to tell Mrs Foster there was a "specific issue... and we're investigating further".
He believed it was an issue that "could be fixed quite easily, incorrectly so".
Mr Hutchinson's handover note was intended for Ms McCay, but he believes he may have emailed a copy to Mr Mills, who by that stage had replaced Fiona Hepper as the head of DETI's energy division.
The inquiry has not uncovered any such email, says Mr Lunny.
Inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin is concerned that the document, which includes the terms "immediate and urgent", should have gone to Mr Mills, and he is "anxious to know" if it did.
Image source, RHI Inquiry"In this case you knew Fiona had left, you knew (Joanne) McCutcheon had left and your handover note was perhaps the only objective evidence of what had gone before and what ought to come," adds the chair.
"It might have been discussed with him after I left, but I don't think I personally... I think I've talked to him about it," Mr Hutchinson says.
He says he flagged it up at a heads-of-branch meeting before he left DETI.