Farmers turn on DUP’s Diane Dodds, accusing her of building an ‘energy border’ in the Irish Sea over plan to throw every RHI claimant out of scheme

DUP minister Diane Dodds’ proposal to throw every RHI claimant out of the non-domestic RHI scheme will create an “energy border in the Irish Sea”, the Ulster Farmers’ Union has said.
Diane Dodds and Arlene Foster at the Balmoral Show – but now farmers are angry at their plan to shut RHI for goodDiane Dodds and Arlene Foster at the Balmoral Show – but now farmers are angry at their plan to shut RHI for good
Diane Dodds and Arlene Foster at the Balmoral Show – but now farmers are angry at their plan to shut RHI for good

Last week the Economy Minister announced that she planned to shut the scheme – which closed to new entrants in 2016 – for good and has opened a public consultation on giving a final payment to each claimant.

Mrs Dodds, whose department has twice slashed payments to a fraction of what they were when Arlene Foster opened RHI in 2012, proposes that most boilers should get a payment of £35,000 – less than the subsidy which many boilers were getting annually under the 20-year scheme.

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Most boilers were installed in agricultural settings – particularly in Moy Park’s poultry farmers – and the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) said that it wanted to see “parity with Great Britain” which still has its own scheme now paying far higher subsidies.

The Republic of Ireland also has a far more lucrative scheme than Northern Ireland, putting local farmers at a competitive disadvantage with the rest of the British Isles.

The influential UFU, which for many years has had a close relationship with the DUP, hinted at strains in that link. it said that four months ago it wrote to Mrs Dodds asking for a meeting about RHI but “this was never obtained”.

The UFU argued that Mrs Dodds’ policy “will create an energy border in the Irish Sea and on the island of Ireland”.

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Mrs Dodds has argued that she must be fair to both taxpayers and claimants. The former MEP said that the scheme was so badly set up that it was not possible to prove that it was even benefiting the environment and that she wanted to open a new RHI-type scheme once this one is shut – a long-standing request from giant poultry processor Moy Park.

UFU deputy president David Brown said, “We have no confidence in the department’s calculations which they have based their proposals on. Suddenly we have moved from an overspend to a huge underspend.

“The reduction in 2017 to £12,000 per boiler eliminated the overspend. Yet, in 2019 it was reduced further to £2,000 per boiler creating an underspend in 2019/2020 of over £22m and an anticipated underspend of £26m this year.”

He questioned how Stormont could meet its policy goal of slashing carbon emissions if the decision led to claimants removing wood pellet boilers and replacing them with oil – which is now cheaper to run.

Carbon carnage looms, says claimant

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A man who ran a major UK-wide RHI business has said that Stormont is causing “carbon carnage” by shutting the green heat incentive and encouraging people to revert to fossil fuels.

Mark Roberts owned Renewable Heat Generation Ltd, a company which installed boilers in care homes for free and took the RHI money. He sold the business - which had boilers in four NI care homes and 49 in GB - in 2019 but said he received no money for the NI boilers because of what Stormont had done.

He told the News Letter that Stormont’s “farcical” handling of the scheme contrasted with the situation in GB and meant that any future scheme would be distrusted and that even banks – central to lending for major investments – would not believe any future government promises.

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