RHI official tells the inquiry that he cannot recall whether he read 14-page document

also predecessor, Davina McCay, did not save the handover notes into the Civil Service document recording system — meaning that Mr Wightman was the only person who had the full copy.

But he said he can’t remember if he read it or not.

“You know what a handover document is for — to provide continuity,” Sir Patrick Coghlin (below) said.

“I agree with you, chair — I should have read it,” Mr Wightman replied.

In his latest witness statement, he claimed that important issues “should have been made clear to senior management”. Mr Wightman stressed that he was not trying to mislead the in- he replied: “I’m probably the second.”

He continued by admitting that he tends to “scan” documents and that he continues to struggle with the content of the RHI papers.

Mr Wightman also told the Inquiry that he regrets engaging in informal conversations with the poultry and energy industries.

“I realise that some of the engagement does look naive now, given hindsight,” he said. “But it was done for the right reasons at the time, with the information I had available to me.”

Mr Wightman acknowledged that his talking to stakeholders, including Moy Park, had “led to increased awareness” of proposed tariff changes but said there “no evidence” that it resulted in a spike of applications during July or August 2015.