Renewable Heat Incentive Inquiry examining botched energy scheme
Ex-DUP advisers John Robinson and Stephen Brimstone tell of their links to RHI
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 hearings in critical phase with high-profile witnesses giving evidence
It's been a hectic couple of days at the RHI Inquiry, with plenty of revealing new evidence to chew over.
We'll be back tomorrow morning for another session with Stephen Brimstone in the witness chair.
Join us at the usual time of 09:45 - in the meantime have a great evening...
BBC News NI
A senior DUP backroom figure accused a former Stormont minister from the party of telling lies about family connections to the RHI scheme.
Jonathan Bell used parliamentary privilege in 2017 to claim that John Robinson (below) was one of two DUP advisers who interfered in the running of the scheme because their families had "extensive interests in the poultry sector".
Image source, RHI InquiryMr Robinson - the DUP's communications director - told the inquiry that Mr Bell had "told lies".
He said Mr Bell's accusation had been "hurtful" and had "catapulted" his family into a "media spotlight, which they did not deserve".
Stephen Brimstone "thoroughly" regrets not stepping back from working on the RHI scheme when he was a DUP ministerial adviser.
He was appointed as one of three DUP advisers to the then first minister Arlene Foster in January 2016.
At that time, there was a scramble on at Stormont - in which Mrs Foster was involved - to get the scheme sorted out and shut down because it had burst Northern Ireland's budget by hundreds of millions of pounds.
Image source, RHI InquiryBut Mr Brimstone didn't step away from the work on the scheme, even though he'd installed a boiler and was waiting on his RHI application being approved.
He says he should've also "put my hands up" and withdrew himself from discussions about the scheme the previous summer.
"I should've said... there's a real, perceived conflict of interest here," he admits.
There was "no way" that Stephen Brimstone was "out to milk the system" to increase his returns from the RHI scheme, he tells the inquiry.
He knew it was a "good scheme" but "never considered" running his boiler "100% of the time".
"Maybe that was naive of me... but I'd never heard of anyone attempting those means to generate more income."
Usage figures for his biomass boiler show that it was running for an average of about four hours a day.
That's slightly less than the 1,500 hours across a year that Mr Brimstone had put down as an estimate on his scheme application form.
There's a lengthy discussion about the guidelines on what kind of property qualified for the non-domestic RHI scheme and Sir Patrick Coghlin prefers to cut to the chase.
Image source, Getty ImagesHe observes that Mr Brimstone applied for it for non-domestic use - the agricultural shed was the non-domestic use and it fed the domestic property.
"Arguably that is right - whether it's consistent with the expenditure of public money is another question," he adds.
Stephen Brimstone smiles when he tells the inquiry that he wishes he'd replaced his biomass boiler with an oil heating system in 2015 and had "never come across" the RHI scheme.
The cost of wood pellets had risen and there was more maintenance with a biomass boiler than an oil one - he admits that had the attractive financial incentive not been on offer he would've ditched renewable heat.
Image source, Getty ImagesHe "didn't for one minute think the boiler would last" for the 20-year lifetime of the initiative - his experience of running one for the previous eight years had shown to him that they needed plenty of attention.
He chose to apply for the non-domestic RHI scheme rather than a similar initiative for homes because his understanding was that heating two domestic properties with a non-domestic boiler was permitted.
He says he would not have spent more than £15,000 on a new boiler if he hadn't been sure it would qualify for RHI subsidies.
The inquiry is shown a birds-eye photo of Stephen Brimstone's house - Sir Patrick Coghlin wants to see the outline of the property but that's asking too much, it seems.
Image source, RHI InquiryMr Brimstone does his best to give an idea of the size of the property with reference to a tyre mark on the driveway.
They even get a glimpse of the sun shining on the new cattle crush... most frustrating that we don't get to see any of this!
Stephen Brimstone first became aware of the existence RHI scheme through his work as DUP adviser in the Department for Social Development.
The then minister Nelson McCausland was facing an issue about rising heating costs in social housing blocks and Mr Brimstone went out "digging" for a potential solution.
His "initial analysis" was that the initiative "could've potentially assisted with... a communal heating system" and he also remembered seeing biomass boilers used in social housing in Germany.
He believes he found details of the scheme in an internet search, adding that he "can't pin" his introduction to it on his fellow DUP adviser Dr Andrew Crawford (above).
After experiencing problems with his biomass boiler - which had several years of use by that stage - Stephen Brimstone began looking into replacing it in November 2014.
His fellow DUP adviser Dr Andrew Crawford gave him contact details for the civil servant who was managing the RHI scheme at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI).
That official was Stuart Wightman and Mr Brimstone called him to discuss the energy initiative.
Image source, RHI InquiryIn his evidence to the inquiry several months ago, Mr Wightman said Mr Brimstone didn't identify himself as a ministerial adviser and he described the call as "kind of unusual" because of how it started.
Asked by inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin if he told the civil servant that he was a DUP adviser, Mr Brimstone replies: "I don't believe that I would have."
He also says he wouldn't have replaced his boiler if the RHI scheme hadn't been available.
With the help of a £3,000 grant in 2007, Stephen Brimstone installed a small biomass boiler in his shed to heat his home.
Joseph Aiken observes that Mr Brimstone was an "early adopter" of renewable heating technology - the witness says he was "interested in how you could be more sustainable" when it came to energy use.
Image source, PA"I nearly dread bringing this up," he says quietly, before explaining that the cost of wood pellets - the fuel for biomass boilers - was "at a rate that was attractive" at the time.
Asked to explain his "dread", he says he's "aware in this whole RHI debacle" that the cost of pellets has been something of a hot topic.
Stephen Brimstone's RHI scheme-registered biomass boiler is situated in a shed next to his house - you can see a rather grainy image of the shed below.
The house and the shed were built on land gifted to him and his wife by his father-in-law - the land was used as an outfarm, several miles away from the main farm.
Image source, RHI InquiryMr Brimstone says the land is still used for "significant farming activity" and that's why he needed to construct the shed when the neighbouring house was built more than 10 years ago.
Land & Property Services determined in 2008 that for rates purposes the shed was an agricultural building.
Joseph Aiken says that's "significant" in relation to the RHI scheme rules because if a boiler is installed in an agricultural building there's "likely to be no question of its eligibility".
The inquiry has "in excess of 30 lever-arch files" full of documents relating to Stephen Brimstone's application to the RHI scheme and the subsequent investigations into it.
Joseph Aiken says the scheme's administrator Ofgem has confirmed that his biomass boiler installation was valid under the scheme's rules.
However, he says investigations have revealed some issues that may be of interest to the inquiry.
Mr Aiken begins his explanation of Mr Brimstone's installation by drawing the panel's attention to a photo of the witness's home but to his dismay the image has been redacted so all the panel can see is a black rectangle.
There is a "large volume of witness evidence" relating to Stephen Brimstone's membership of the RHI scheme, including a statement from the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) MLA Jim Allister.
Inquiry barrister Joseph Aiken tells Mr Brimstone that his involvement in the energy initiative will be one of the key themes that the questioning will focus on.
One issue will be whether Mr Brimstone had "any form of conflict of interest because of your own application" to the scheme.
Image source, RHI InquiryHe applied to it in August 2015 when he was an adviser to the then junior minister Michelle McIlveen of the DUP.
His application was approved in April the next year, when he was advising the then first minister Arlene Foster, but he received backdated payments to the date on which he applied.
Mr Brimstone's link to the scheme "attracted significant political attention... as well as wider media attention" when it emerged in December 2016 and January 2017, says Mr Aiken.
After taking the oath, former DUP adviser Stephen Brimstone takes his seat in the Senate chamber.
He's submitted two witness statements to the inquiry - you can find them here, external and here, external.
Mr Brimstone was employed as a DUP adviser for eight years from 2008, serving several ministers, including Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster during their spells as first minister.
Image source, RHI InquiryIt's fair to say he's no stranger to controversy - you may remember him from the Red Sky housing maintenance scandal of several years ago.
His treatment of the then DUP councillor Jenny Palmer over that affair led to her whistleblowing on a BBC Spotlight programme.
Mr Brimstone is a claimant on the RHI scheme but the DUP said that was not a factor in his decision to quit his £91,809-a-year job in November 2016, just a few weeks before the cash-for-ash story broke.
The inquiry's junior counsel Joseph Aiken - whose taste in spectacles often leaves us impressed and does so again today - is asking the questions.
Image source, RHI InquiryThanks for joining us again.
Want to watch the afternoon session? Click play on the video at the top of this page.
John Robinson's evidence is at an end and the inquiry breaks for lunch.
Proceedings will resume at 14:10 when former DUP adviser Stephen Brimstone will be in the witness chair.
One lesson that needs to be learned from the RHI fiasco is that "if you have experts you may actually save money in the long run", says John Robinson.
Stormont's economy department lacks expertise, he explains, and he and the minister often found that people in the private sector displayed greater expertise on specific topics than civil servants.
Image source, RHI InquiryLike other witnesses have done, he raises the point that civil servants in Northern Ireland tend to be generalists rather than specialists.
"They weren't getting the time to actually read into an issue and become an absolute expert," he says.
A whistleblower's complaint prompted an investigation into potential abuse in a DUP adviser's RHI scheme boiler installation.
Stephen Brimstone (below) - who'll give evidence this afternoon - was a claimant on the scheme and his heating system was inspected by auditors and was given the all-clear.
In October 2016, senior civil servant Dr Andrew McCormick received a letter from the Northern Ireland Audit Office regarding the complaint about Mr Brimstone's RHI boiler and passed the message to John Robinson.
Image source, NI AssemblyMr Robinson says he made senior DUP adviser Timothy Johnston and Mr Brimstone aware of the investigation.
Asked if it was appropriate to tell Mr Brimstone what he'd heard, Mr Robinson says he "didn't feel there was any issue with having that conversation" given that the investigation had ended.
"The last thing I would've wanted to do... was to prejudice any investigation - that would never have been my intention."
Image source, PAJonathan Bell "could be difficult", says John Robinson, and they had "fairly forthright conversations" at times.
"I may have been young but I wasn't going to be intimidated," he explains but declines to go into detail.
In December 2016, Sunday Life journalist Ciaran Barnes contacted the DUP about a claim from the former enterprise minister Jonathan Bell that he'd been offered a CBE to stay silent on the RHI scandal.
The party was invited to give a response.
A DUP press officer forwarded the request to a number of senior party advisers and the then economy minister Simon Hamilton, explaining that the paper could run it as a front-page story.
Image source, RHI InquiryThe press officer said that Mr Barnes had told him that it the DUP "could get someone to go on the record... that they felt intimidated" by Mr Bell the paper would run that instead, with the headline "Bully-boy Bell".
Mr Robinson's reaction, expressed in an email, was to describe Mr Bell's CBE claim as "a lie and an act of desperation".
"JB is secondary - our aim must be to get this scheme under control," he wrote.