Diane Dodds works out how to shut down RHI, but wants to open new renewable heat scheme

Facing her first Assembly question time, the DUP minister said that closure would be a “complex matter” involving issues already before the courts, EU state aid issues and unspecified “other matters”.

That appears to allude to the scheme remaining open at least for several months before a decision can be taken on how to close it and then legislation brought through the Assembly to enact that decision.

Mrs Dodds’ comments came as an elderly couple who say they face “financial disaster” because of Arlene Foster’s broken promise that the subsidy would be unaltered for 20 years contacted her personally to challenge her over plans to shut the scheme.

Claimants have seen their payments collapse from a maximum of more than £55,000 a year for an individual who ran their subsidised biomass boiler around the clock every day of the year under the ‘burn to earn’ tariffs to a maximum of just over £2,000 a year.

That is about 10% of similar payments under the GB scheme – where there are been no retrospective cuts to subsidies, something which now places some Northern Ireland businesses, including huge poultry processor Moy Park, at a disadvantage to GB competitors.

Mrs Dodds said: “I am determined to find a way forward on RHI that is fair to RHI participants that have acted in good faith but also to taxpayers who are funding the scheme.”

She said that work to create a new green energy scheme would be taken forward as part of an energy strategy for Northern Ireland. The new Upper Bann MLA said that while Northern Ireland was doing well on decarbonising electricity production, it was not doing so well on heat.

Referring to “a renewable heat scheme for the future”, Mrs Dodds said: “I am determined that we will take our time, that we will get the issues right and that there will be no repeat of the mistakes of the past.”

When asked by the SDLP if she had engaged with the around 1,200 businesses with boilers on the scheme, she said that “the answer for me is no, I have not engaged personally; I am relatively new in post”.

Mrs Dodds said it was “too soon to say” how much compensation would be paid to claimants if the scheme is shut.

She said that she wanted to engage with participants “in a way that is fair, in a way that is compassionate, and in a way that addresses the issues that we have experienced in the past”.

She also revealed that there are 96 applications for the voluntary buy-out which are now under assessment by her department but no offers have yet been made.

When asked how many boilers have been inspected and found to be non-comppliant, Mrs Dodds said that 600 sites had been inspected. However, she did not say how many had been found to be in breach of the rules. Other sources suggest that very few people have been found to be in breach of the regulations.

The shambolic handling of RHI – which at one time Stormont estimated would mean an overspend of £700 million over 20 years – has now led to a massive underspend of money available to Northern Ireland to incentivise renewable heat.

Mrs Dodds told MLAs that the current RHI scheme is now spending about £7 million per year out of a budget from the Treasury of £28 million.

TUV leader Jim Allister pressed Mrs Dodds around the implications of closing the scheme and pushing current claimants towards reverting to fossil fuels at a time when the Executive says that it wants to prioritise the decarbonisation of the economy.

Mrs Dodds said that she did not want to see that happen and urged individuals to take part in a consultation on the Executive’s new energy strategy.