There "should there be more" changes made to how ministerial advisers are appointed at Stormont, accepts Arlene Foster.

She concedes that there are "big learnings" to be made and changes would be needed "in terms of transparency".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Inquiry panellist Dr Keith MacLean (above) says that one of those "learnings" should be "just to stick to the code" for appointing advisers.

Inquiry QC David Scoffield asks whether Stormont parties could be accused of "looking after their own people" in the appointment of advisers "rather than simply getting the best people for the job".

Mrs Foster doesn't believe that's a fair comment and says that over the years some advisers have "come and gone".

The inquiry has "heard enough evidence" to show that the DUP did not follow the proper procedures for appointing ministerial advisers, says Sir Patrick Coghlin.

A civil service code of practice states that advisers are to be appointed by ministers but the inquiry chair says DUP ministers were not selecting the most appropriately qualified individuals.

Instead, the evidence suggests that the code was largely circumvented, with the DUP itself selecting advisers who were then assigned to the party's ministers.

Image source, Getty Images

He adds that he find it "very difficult to understand" is how the DUP and Sinn Féin "completely ignored" that code for appointing advisers and says that's a "matter of some concern".

Asked what she did to put that right when she became first minister, Arlene Foster says she asked her ministers who they wanted as their advisers.

"But I'm not going to say there's not room for improvement."

There were "not many" DUP advisers "who were putting their hands up" to work with Jonathan Bell, says Arlene Foster.

She believes that Peter Robinson probably put Tim Cairns (below) and Mr Bell together at DETI because they had worked with each other when Mr Bell was a junior minister at the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minster.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

She says the "bad working relationship" between Mr Bell and his adviser is "probably a very good reason" why the proper process for appointing advisers "should have been followed in a more proactive way".

Asked about whether the DUP's approach to appointing ministerial advisers was any different to how other Stormont parties did it, she says that all DUP advisers had a university education and "an ability to work within the system".

"I'm not sure that can be said about every other special adviser."

When Arlene Foster moved from DETI to the finance department in May 2015 her adviser Dr Andrew Crawford moved with her.

His DETI successor Tim Cairns has said it would have made sense for Dr Crawford to have stayed where he was.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

But Mrs Foster says Dr Crawford had been with her as an adviser since 2007 and then chose to accompany her to the finance department: "He was asked if he wanted to go and he indicated that he did."

Mrs Foster says he "may have wanted to go because he didn't want to serve" Jonathan Bell but she adds that she doesn't know the full answer to that.

In his evidence to the inquiry, Timothy Johnston questions Jonathan Bell's competence as a minister, and Arlene Foster says she agree with that view.

Asked if she couldn't have been more proactive in offering help, she doubts it would've been welcomed.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

"Johnny wasn't the sort of person who would take kindly to someone who he would see as interfering in his department," she says.

She says it wasn't for her to tell Peter Robinson who to appoint as a minister but it was a "widely held view within senior colleagues" that Mr Bell shouldn't have been appointed.

DUP leader Peter Robinson (below, right) "would have known" that Jonathan Bell "had a temper", says Arlene Foster.

She says that in spite of that it was Mr Robinson's decision to make Mr Bell and his adviser Tim Cairns work together again after their London row.

Image source, Pacemaker

Mr Bell and Mr Robinson had a "close relationship"," she adds.

She "absolutely" believes the relationship between Mr Bell and his adviser had an impact on how the RHI scheme was handled.

The difficult relationship between Jonathan Bell and his adviser Tim Cairns was discussed at a DUP officers' meeting in June 2015.

The men had a row over breakfast during a work trip to London that month, which has been discussed at length at the inquiry.

Senior DUP adviser Timothy Johnston (above left) - now the party's chief executive - says in his written evidence that a number of senior colleagues believed that Mr Bell and Mr Cairns "were as bad as each other" and both should've been "dismissed from their respective roles".

Arlene Foster says she believes that some people at the DUP officers meeting may have said they were "appalled at what had been going on" between a minister and his adviser.

She says Peter Robinson, then DUP leader and first minister, said he would deal with the matter.

Mr Bell's adviser Tim Cairns has told the inquiry that he met Arlene Foster and her adviser to tell them about the emerging problems with the RHI scheme in June 2015.

He said they replied that it was the first they'd heard of any such issues.

Asked by the inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin why she didn't have any memory of the meeting, Mrs Foster tells the inquiry that she didn't think what was being discussed was important at the time.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

But he presses her on that answer, telling her that because not long before that she had been the minister responsible for the scheme "one might've thought you would've thought that was quite important".

"You really didn't bother too much with it?" he asks.

Mrs Foster make the point that she had left the enterprise department by that stage.

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We've fixed out technical problems so just press the play button on the video at the top of this page.

Arlene Foster says she would've been happy to have given advice to Jonathan Bell, her then party colleague and successor as the enterprise minister at Stormont, in early summer June 2015.

But Mr Bell didn't ask to meet her, she says.

Image source, Pacemaker

And it "doesn't surprise" her that his adviser claims Mr Bell didn't want any input from Mrs Foster or her adviser into his ministerial work.

"But I would've been quite happy to help if I he had have asked," adds Mrs Foster.

We appear to have having a bit of an issue with our live video stream this morning.

We're working flat out to get it sorted but if you want to watch the proceedings in the meantime you can watch it on the inquiry's website, external.

Arlene Foster will be asked questions today about the period from June 2015, after she had taken up the role of Stormont's finance minister.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

She had left the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), the department that had set up the RHI scheme, before the Northern Ireland Assembly election of the previous month.

Mr Scoffield (above) says that on the agenda today will be what happened regarding the delay of cost controls to the RHI scheme in the summer and autumn of that year and the events leading to the ultimate closure of the initiative in early 2016.

This is Arlene Foster's fifth day at the RHI Inquiry and she has already taken the oath so the inquiry's senior counsel David Scoffield QC fires out the first questions for the former first minister.

In her most recent witness statement, published yesterday, external, Mrs Foster denies claims there was a "party narrative" by the DUP to discredit former minister Jonathan Bell in the fallout over the RHI scheme.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

The inquiry has already heard allegations that a former DUP adviser was prepared to fit his story with the party's narrative when the scandal emerged in December 2016.

That led Mr Bell to claim he had been the victim of a "smear campaign" orchestrated by the DUP.

Asked to give her view in her witness statement, Mrs Foster says she believed there "was no party narrative".

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An independent inquiry into the RHI scandal was established in January last year by the then finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir.

He ordered it in the wake of the huge public concern and what was then a major political crisis surrounding the scheme.

The RHI Inquiry began in November last year and Sir Patrick Coghlin (below), a retired Court of Appeal judge, is its chair and has been given full control over how it will operate.

Image source, Pacemaker

It is looking at:

• the design and introduction of the RHI scheme
• the scheme's initial operation, administration, promotion and supervision
• the introduction of revised subsidies and a usage cap for new scheme claimants in autumn 2015
• the scheme's closure in February 2016

For more information on the RHI Inquiry, you can read our handy Q&A.

When the scale of the overspend emerged, public and political concern rocketed.

As the minister in charge of the Stormont department that set up the RHI scheme, the DUP leader Arlene Foster faced calls to resign from her role as Northern Ireland's first minister in December 2016.

Image source, PA

She resisted, and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness then quit as deputy first minister in protest at the DUP's handling of what had by then become a full-blown political crisis.

That move brought about the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive. Now, well beyond a year-and-a-half on from that, Northern Ireland remains without a devolved administration.

You can find much more detail on the RHI scheme in our need-to-know guide.

The budget of the RHI scheme ran out of control because of critical flaws in the way the initiative was set up.

Claimants could effectively earn more money the more fuel they burned because the subsidies on offer for renewable fuels were far greater than the cost of the fuels themselves.

At one point the estimate for the overspend was set at £700m if permanent cost controls weren't introduced - temporary cuts have since pulled the budget back on track for now.

Whatever the scale of the bill, it will have to be picked up by the Northern Ireland taxpayer.

The Renewable Heat Incentive scheme - or RHI for short - came to the fore of the Northern Ireland public's knowledge in late-2016.

The fallout from the scandal attached to it is still being felt in the region's politics today.

Image source, Getty Images

The scheme was set up by the Northern Ireland Executive in 2012 as a way of encouraging businesses to switch from using fossil fuels to renewable sources for generating their heat.

Those who signed up were offered financial incentives to buy new heating systems and the fuel to run them.

On this cold and blustery day on Stormont hill we've reached one of the most eagerly-awaited witness sessions of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Inquiry since the public hearings began almost a year ago.

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader and former first minister Arlene Foster is returning to the Senate chamber for questioning on her role in the RHI scheme in the period up to its closure in 2016.

The action starts shortly so stay with us for a live stream of every minute of today's proceedings and text reporting on the key moments.