Renewable Heat Incentive Inquiry examining botched energy scheme
Former DETI permanent secretary Dr Andrew McCormick gives evidence
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 entering critical phase with high-profile witnesses giving evidence
It's been a long day at the office for everyone in the Senate chamber but not without the odd fascinating nugget of information emerging.
Dr Andrew McCormick will be back tomorrow the morning for his fourth evidence session - be sure to join us at the usual time of 09:45.
Have a great evening...
Jayne McCormack
BBC News NI politics reporter
Two DUP advisers withheld key information from officials about abuse of the RHI scheme, said a senior civil servant.
Image source, PacemakerArlene Foster's adviser Andrew Crawford sent an email to his adviser colleague Tim Cairns in July 2015, mentioning how poultry farmers were "heating empty sheds" because the subsidies were so lucrative.
Dr Andrew McCormick told the inquiry that had the threat to the scheme's budget been communicated clearly to departmental officials it would have been acted on.
Dr Andrew McCormick takes issue with the claim by Tim Cairns that his question about delaying cost controls in the RHI scheme was simply a "softball" one.
"I do recall it was a point made strongly and clearly," says the senior civil servant, adding that the officials "felt this was very serious" and he doesn't accept that Mr Cairns was "just asking a casual question".
Image source, RHI InquiryInquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin says there's a "clear and stark division" between the two men's accounts.
Dr McCormick says that Mr Cairns told him in January 2017 that DUP adviser Dr Andrew Crawford had been behind the delay.
Dr McCormick subsequently identified Dr Crawford at a hearing of the Northern Ireland Assembly's Public Accounts Committee as the instigator of the delay.
It's a "matter of deep regret" for Dr Andrew McCormick that he didn't stand up to the DUP adviser Tim Cairns and challenge his request for a delay to cost controls coming into effect in the RHI scheme.
He was on the verge of stepping in to object but ultimately didn't take that step.
Image source, RHI Inquiry"Frankly, I should have stood up to this more strongly and said: 'No this is not acceptable'," he says.
Asked why he let the delay happen, he says it was probably in order to finally get a decision on the cost controls confirmed from the minister.
A one-month delay to cost controls coming into effect in the RHI scheme came after "pressure" and a "clear expression of desire" from a DUP adviser, says Dr Andrew Crawford.
The changes to the scheme were due to be introduced on 1 October 2015 but it was agreed to put that back during a meeting between the DETI officials and the minister and his adviser Tim Cairns.
"Timothy Cairns asked for a longer period, it was agreed and then confirmed by the minister," he says.
Image source, Getty ImagesMr Cairns told the inquiry that he asked a "softball question" about whether the original proposed date was the "latest date" that officials would consider and DETI's energy boss then suggested 4 November.
In his evidence, Mr Mills argued that he didn't make the suggestion but acknowledged that he didn't resist a delay.
Asked if anyone asked why Mr Cairns wanted a longer period, Dr McCormick says he can't remember but he thinks they should have done: "I don't feel comfortable at all that we accepted this so readily."
Senior civil servants at DETI didn't do enough to understand Jonathan Bell's way of working after he was appointed as the enterprise minister in May 2015, suggests Dame Una O'Brien.
It would've been "quite conventional", she says, for them to have asked the new minister questions like: "How are we going to work together? What are your preferences? What order do you do business in?"
Image source, RHI InquiryBut officials "hadn't prepared the ground" for what happened in the summer of that year when it took eight weeks for the minister to sign off on the key proposals for the changes to the RHI scheme.
Dr Andrew McCormick says that's an "entirely fair criticism".
Dr Andrew McCormick is "frustrated" that no-one at DETI noticed the high rates of return that were on offer from the RHI scheme.
Asked who's to blame for not spotting that claimants could quickly recoup the tens of thousands of pounds they'd spent on their new heating systems through the scheme, the witness is reluctant to point the finger.
He says that it had been a "train of thought" for the department's economists but he says there;'s a case that he should've been asking questions himself.
The inquiry is shown that he was copied into an email from DETI's energy boss John Mills in which it was outlined that the subsidies were too generous.
"In the cold light of day that shows that had we thought about it properly the penny would've dropped."
He says that if officials had understood the flaw it "would've been beyond seriousness into extreme bad behaviour" not to have acted on it.
Inquiry QC David Scoffield says that it appears from Dr Andrew McCormick's evidence that unless DETI received "very clear and very specific" allegations about the exploitation of the RHI scheme "not very much gets done".
Image source, RHI InquiryAsked if that reflects a culture within the department, the witness admits that "evidently there's a problem".
"There is definitely a lesson for us in terms of commercial awareness, sensitivity, responsiveness."
The former DUP adviser Tim Cairns told inquiry that he raised concerns about possible abuse of the RHI scheme with senior officials, including Dr Andrew McCormick and the minister, and became frustrated with their lack of action.
Asked if Mr Cairns ever raised the possibility of exploitation or abuse of the RHI with him, Dr McCormick says: "No, I don't think it happened."
Dr McCormick remembers a conversation with Dr Andrew Crawford, another DUP adviser, in which some concerns might've been raised.
But his "limited" memory of it is that it "did not include specific allegations or any hard evidence".
"It certainly wasn't Andrew saying: 'You need to something about this.'"
Dame Una O'Brien asks if Dr Andrew McCormick thinks DUP advisers were keeping from him information about the dangers posed by the scheme.
"Yes, that's what happened," he says. "It seems very clear to me that it is withholding information that was relevant."
The DUP adviser Tim Cairns told the inquiry that he raised the issues with Chris Stewart, who was the deputy to the permanent secretary Dr McCormick.
Image source, RHI InquiryMr Stewart's evidence was that he'd been told of a potential spike in applications and allegations of abuse but the claims hadn't been specific.
Dr McCormick says that had the information been conveyed in blunt terms it wouldn't have been lost on officials.
"We've had to admit to a lot of things that make us look unimaginative, leaden-footed and slow-witted but we're not completely stupid."
At the end of July 2015, DUP adviser Dr Andrew Crawford (below) wrote to fellow adviser Tim Cairns warning him about the danger of a spike in applications to the RHI scheme ahead of cuts to the subsidies.
He also explained in his email that "the current problem is that it pays [poultry] producers to heat houses when their houses are empty".
The two advisers had a clear obligation to act to correct the problem, according to Dr Andew McCormick.
He says it seems "crystal clear" that Dr Crawford understood the dangers present in the scheme and the chance to have acted urgently to fix the problem was "an incredible lost opportunity".
A claim by Stormont's economy department that there was a "conspiracy of silence" about the flaws in the RHI scheme is an "overstatement", admits Dr Andrew McCormick.
Way back in November last year, a barrister for the Department for the Economy - formerly DETI - said that people who knew of the scheme's weaknesses didn't tell the department, meaning that they couldn't be fixed.
Image source, RHI InquiryBut in light of the evidence the inquiry has seen since then, Dr McCormick accepts that "quite a few people seem to have tried to draw those to the attention of the department" and they deserve credit.
He says the department's claim is "unfair" and accepts that there was "a lot of noise" rather than silence about what was wrong with the scheme.
There was "such wide and clear knowledge" of the RHI scheme being could exploited but DETI didn't know about it, says Dr Andrew McCormick.
That's "one of the worst parts of the whole episode".
Image source, PASir Patrick Coghlin says DETI officials should've taken some basic steps to find out what was happening, such as attending trade events, at which boiler salesmen were handing out leaflets promoting the scheme as "cash for cash".
Dr McCormick shares "a lot of exasperation about this" but he's reluctant to say anything more.
That's because he's opened an internal investigation at the economy department that "has the potential yet to lead to disciplinary action against officials".
A renewable heat firm called Solmatix, which sold biomass boilers, wrote to DETI in the summer of 2015 to say that some "unscrupulous beneficiaries... notably within the poultry sector" were "actively exploiting" the RHI scheme.
But Dr Andrew McCormick wasn't told about the letter and he believes that his deputy and the department's energy boss didn't know of its existence either.
Image source, Getty ImagesHe says it should've "gone straight to" the department's internal auditors, its senior managers and the Northern Ireland Audit Office for investigation.
He says the allegation contained in the letter is "very, very serious" and he adds: "Why on earth that wasn't acted on I have no idea."
Dr Andrew McCormick concedes that DETI officials could have called an urgent meeting about the RHI submission but Jonathan Bell's ministerial adviser Tim Cairns (below) "wasn't encouraging us to do so".
"I have no hesitation in retaining the view that there was a reluctance to approve the submission," he says.
Mr Cairns had been working with at least one fellow DUP adviser on the proposals but he's denied claims that there was any desire on his part to see the approval delayed.
Image source, RHI Inquiry"He certainly was putting in awkward questions," says Dr McCormick.
The impression he had from discussions with other officials was that they couldn't get matters past the adviser.
"The role of special advisers is to ask awkward questions," observes Dame Una O'Brien.
Jonathan Bell spent part of the summer of 2015 on holiday and DETI civil servants decided there was nothing they could do to get him to sign off on the RHI scheme proposals.
The former minister told the inquiry that he'd instructed his officials to contact him "at any time" if he was needed.
As the inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coglhin notes, Mr Bell was "just up at Portstewart" and Dr Andrew McCormick admits there's "no good explanation for us being so passive".
Image source, PAInquiry panellist Dame Una O'Brien says it was "just really basic administration" and she wants to know why senior figures in the department didn't bother to phone Mr Bell.
"We didn't realise how much it mattered," says the witness, adding that they "were not sufficiently motivated to pursue it".
"It's not a good thing to say but it's the truth."
Officials at DETI didn't have the "mental dexterity" to approach Jonathan Bell directly when the key proposal paper for the RHI scheme's changes hadn't been signed off, says Dr Andrew McCormick.
The submission had been given to Mr Bell's DUP adviser Tim Cairns after it was drawn up and as the summer wore on it still hadn't been approved.
The pressure was on because there was an urgent need to get cost controls added to the scheme.
Asked if the officials should've bypassed the adviser and spoken to the minister, Dr McCormick accepts that "would've been a good thing".
"We should've been more imaginative and determined... lesson learned."
Dr Andrew McCormick recalls one occasion when the then enterprise minister Jonathan Bell told him that if the senior civil servant was happy with what was proposed in a submission he was happy too.
Image source, RHI InquiryThe witness says that's "not a comfortable place" for a civil servant to be".
"The whole point is to have both official and political oversight of decision making so I cannot be happy with everything he should be concerned about."
Jonathan Bell "could be very quick when he wanted to be" when it came to signing off on ministerial documents, according to Dr Andrew MCormick.
In September and October 2015, DUP ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive had adopted a policy of rolling resignations - quitting office before returning for a day or two continually over several weeks.
Image source, PAThat was part of a political fallout with Sinn Féin over the murder of a man in Belfast that was blamed on the IRA.
Mr Bell was one of those ministers and Dr McCormick says he remembers seeing him "clear 10 submissions in 10 minutes [when] he was in post for a few hours".
Asked if Mr Bell had read all of them, he has his doubts: "I'm not sure how much they were read, to be honest - I have my suspicions on that."
It took almost two months for the July 2015 submission detailing the addition of cost controls to the RHI scheme to be signed off by the then DETI minister Jonathan Bell.
There are conflicting reasons as to why it wasn't signed off long before that - Mr Bell says he didn't get it before he went on holiday that summer and nor did he receive immediately after he returned.
Image source, Getty ImagesThe paper was marked as being urgent - Dr Andrew McCormick says it would be "quite normal" for such submissions to be approved within a week.
"There's no reason why [that submission] shouldn't have been around that sort of time."