Sam McBride: RHI’s final victims will suffer for the actions of others, yet never realise it

The retired Court of Appeal judge’s verdict on the behaviour which led to the cash for ash scandal will be a seminal moment in the history of Northern Ireland.

Already, even before knowing the verdict of the public inquiry, the evidence which it has revealed and on which the verdict will be based has had a profound impact.

Yesterday the University of Liverpool published the results of its major Northern Ireland General Election Survey.

Buried in the detail as an extraordinary finding, although it is in line with wider evidence of the enormous interest from the public in this story.

The study of 2,000 people found that after health and Brexit, voters listed the RHI scandal in third place as the most important election issue for them – higher than the environment, housing, poverty, education, crime and a plethora of other major issues.

Even though the inquiry hearings concluded a year and a half ago, those hearings have devastated the reputations of some of Northern Ireland’s most powerful and least accountable individuals.

There are obvious losers from RHI – individual politicians and spads whose careers have been ended, individual civil servants whose inexplicable behaviour has been exposed in a way they could never have anticipated, boiler owners who have gone from not only getting free heat but making a profit to now being unable to keep up their repayments to their lenders after the subsidy was retrospectively slashed.

But one of the great unappreciated tragedies of RHI is those who will suffer because of the actions of the scandal without ever realising it.

At the heart of the scandal was a belief across much of Stormont that Northern Ireland should milk the Treasury teat for all that it could.

When London, rather than Stormont, was paying for something, the ostensible policy – in this case, green energy - was to some people far less important than the real policy of Northern Ireland sucking in yet more Treasury money, knowing that most of it did not come from taxpayers in Northern Ireland.

Therefore, even when he had been told that RHI was running out of control and urgently needed reined in, Arlene Foster’s special adviser Andrew Crawford told a colleague “I am a little confused over what the problem is”, before going on to outline his mistaken belief that London was paying for the scheme “and therefore if we go over our 4% target all that will happen is that we will get more than our fair share of the UK pot. I would have thought that this is to NIs [sic] advantage...”

Regardless of how Sir Patrick rules on Dr Crawford’s behaviour, the exposure of that mentality – which was not unique to him but straddled much of the Stormont establishment – has done unmistakable harm to Northern Ireland.

As with so many elements of RHI, that was expedient in the short term has been strategically disastrous for Northern Ireland.

The recent deal which formed the basis on which Stormont was restored contained terms which are designed so that never again will anyone in Stormont think that they can fill their boots with Treasury money.

In government, as in any organisation, the rawest expression of power is in who decides how money is spent.

The deal to restore the Executive includes new structures to give Westminster a role in overseeing how Stormont spends at least part of its money.

Although vague as to precisely how that oversight will work, it is clear that devolution has returned with at least some diminution of its previously almost unfettered power over what is devolved.

The provisions in the New Decade, New Approach deal are just one of the signs that the Treasury – which at the best of times, as the guardian of taxpayers’ money, is difficult to convince of the need for more expenditure – is alive to precisely what went on with RHI.

Twice in the last two months, Stormont Finance Minister Conor Murphy has travelled to 11 Downing Street to complain that he is not being given enough money for public services.

On both occasions, he has not even met with the Chancellor – much less the Prime Minister, as was common in the past – and has instead been left to deal with the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

In tandem with Mr Murphy’s efforts, Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill – two veterans of the past Executives which presided over RHI and neither of whom have shown any public contrition for the culture of fiscal promiscuity with GB taxpayers’ money – have appealed to Whitehall for more cash. Some of those on London’s side of the table must have found it hard to suppress a snigger at the audacity of it.

But the problem for Northern Ireland is that there are areas in which we either arguably or objectively do need more money.

This week the collapse of the airline Flybe had a disproportionate impact on Northern Ireland.

Separated from the rest of the UK by a sea, Northern Irish people do not have the option of using coaches or rail transport to travel to GB destinations.

Therefore Stormont could make the argument that flights between Northern Ireland and GB should be subject to reduced Air Passenger Duty (APD), using the same argument that means flights to Scottish islands are exempt from APD.

Similarly, there are arguments that the needs of victims of the Troubles are unique to Northern Ireland and require separate additional funding.

Likewise on Brexit, there is an argument that Northern Ireland will need significant new funding to mitigate the difficulties caused by being the only part of the UK to share a land border with the EU and a new internal UK trade border.

But the gravest of all areas is health, which is in a crisis beyond anything comparable to the NHS in other parts of the UK.

With the Royal College of Surgeons having said that “Northern Ireland’s healthcare system is at the point of collapse” and with some people waiting in agony for a decade to get a joint replacement, there is overwhelming agreement that radical health reform is needed.

Some of that will be unpopular, which is a matter for politicians. But both the reforms themselves and work to at least reduce the vast backlog will have massive cost implications.

Yet RHI has meant that even where lives are potentially at stake, the Treasury will be casting a particularly sceptical eye over what is being requested.

But RHI’s grim legacy is about more than just money. Confidence in government has been shattered. That will make it harder for businesses to believe Stormont’s guarantees, given how it has walked away from RHI, leaving some people high and dry.

But there are more serious implications if the public come to believe that their government is, at best, incompetent.

The Coronavirus outbreak emphasises how critical it is to be able to trust government in a time of crisis by following official advice and accepting what may be draconian but necessary efforts to save lives. In the absence of that trust lies danger.

Sir Patrick’s report will be important in establishing responsibility for the RHI scandal. But there are issues which go even deeper than who did what and why. Regardless of the inquiry’s verdict, RHI’s legacy will stretch long into the future.

l See next Thursday and Friday’s News Letters for previews looking ahead to the RHI Inquiry report and then unrivalled reports and analysis of the report in next Saturday’s News Letter.