Invest NI ‘missed opportunity’ to warn of flaws

THE chief executive of Invest NI has admitted the organisation “very clearly” missed opportunities to inform officials about critical flaws in the RHI scheme.

Alastair Hamilton appeared before the inquiry panel and was quizzed on Thursday’s evidence from heating consultant Alastair Nicol.

Mr Nicol had confirmed that problems with the scheme had been identified as early as 2013, just months after RHI became operational, and passed those concerns on to Invest NI.

Energy experts working for the economic development agency told it that the lucrative subsidies on offer were driving some people to install boilers simply to “grab the RHI money”.

Mr Hamilton accepted that Invest NI “had evidence ... that clearly showed the scheme was not operating as it was intended”.

But the warning was not passed on to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETI), the Stormont department running the scheme.

Mr Hamilton said he had not become aware of the RHI scheme until 2014-15.

Invest NI is part of the enterprise department, which set up the flawed green energy scheme.

Mr Hamilton was asked by inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin why Invest NI had not been consulted on the original design and implementation of the RHI scheme, given that it had the business experts and officials, while those in the enterprise department running the scheme were ‘generalists’ with no energy experience.

“I think there was a capability that wasn’t tapped into,” said Mr Hamilton.

“Why was that?” Sir Patrick asked.

“I can’t answer that, sir,” Mr Hamilton said.

Sir Patrick said that indicated a “complete breakdown” of communication between DETI and Invest NI over the RHI scheme.

He said that it could be a down to “failure” on the part of either body or a “degree of competition” that DETI might have felt in its desire to run the scheme itself.