Foster will not resign over flawed renewable heating scheme

The North's First Minister Arlene Foster says she has no intention of resigning over the flawed Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.

Ms Foster, after returning from a trade mission to China, said on Monday she had "nothing to hide" over the scheme which potentially could cost the Northern Executive and the Northern Ireland taxpayer more than £400 million over the next 20 years.

The scheme was designed to encourage farmers, businesses and other users to switch from fossil fuels to biomass heating systems such as wood-burning boilers. Failure to put a cap on the amount of usage and paying out more in subsidies than in fuel costs means that potentially the scheme could face an overspend of more than £400 million.

This resulted in Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt calling on Ms Foster to resign because the scheme was run by the former Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry (DETI) when she was minister there. Pressure on Ms Foster was exacerbated by whistleblowers coming forward to say that as far back as 2013 they had warned Ms Foster and her officials about the scheme.

Officials

Ms Foster has already stated that she passed on these warnings for her officials to investigate and that she “did all that was appropriate in the circumstances”.

“That is the accepted way that you deal with these issues,” she added on Monday when she gave a number of interviews about the scheme. “If someone comes to you about a matter concerning the department you then give it to officials to deal with and that is exactly what I did. I regret of course that it was not dealt with in the appropriate fashion.”

She acknowledged that if the warnings had been dealt with at the time “then we would have been able to deal with the issue at an earlier stage”.

Ms Foster said the scheme was a good policy but that “unfortunately its implementation . . . went fundamentally wrong”.

She added that the DUP Minister for the Economy Simon Hamilton whose department took over from DETI was working hard to bring forward proposals in the new year to exert some "cost control" on the scheme.

“What is important for us is that we bring forward proposals to the Assembly in early January to make sure that we reduce the potential cost of the scheme, to make sure that it does not cost the sort of money that has been talked about,” she said.

She added that all 1,946 people who are receiving the grants would have their installations inspected to ensure they were fully complying with the scheme.

Investigation

There also have been calls for the names of all beneficiaries to be released. The Department for the Economy said this was not possible due to data protection legislation.

Ms Foster said that all grant recipients would be contacted to determine if they would allow their names to be publicised.

The Northern Assembly's Public Account Committee, which is investigating the scheme, is due to report on its findings in the new year which could be additionally embarrassing for Ms Foster.

She insisted however that despite the calls for her to quit that she would remain on as First Minister. She said she was not surprised that her political opponents issued resignation calls.

“The mark of a politician is not what he or she does during the good times but what he or she does during challenging times. I intend to use my authority to make sure we get this scheme under control and that we deal with it in a proper fashion,” she said.

“I tend not to walk away from difficult tasks. Other people walk away when the going gets tough. I don’t walk away,” said Ms Foster.