SINN Féin’s Raymond McCartney said today that the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme was flawed from its inception.
And he says what happened in terms of the waste of public money was an unacceptable dereliction of responsibility.
A whistleblower revealed this week that she knew the scheme was open to fraud within five minutes of reading the finer detail.
At the time she alerted Arlene Foster, the then Economy Minister.
But Mrs Foster said she passed the claims onto her senior civil servants and has rejected calls for her to resign over the £400 million hole in the Stormont accounts.
The Sinn Fein Foyle MLA said: “The Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, which will cost the public purse over £400m, has been flawed from the outset.
“There are huge implications for the civil service and our block grant. Very senior officials had responsibility over the establishment, the monitoring and the implementation of RHI.
“It beggars belief internal reporting systems were so flawed that key issues were not identified and addressed within the department despite warnings having being raised about the scheme.
“There are also real concerns that there may well have been aggressive exploitation of this scheme for commercial profit and gain.
“The public, the Assembly and the Executive all need to know what happened here.
“A vast amount of taxpayers’ money will be lost, which should be available to the Executive for front line public services at a time of increasing British Tory cuts.
“I do believe that Arlene Foster, who was the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister at the time, should come forward to provide a full account and set the public record straight on this issue.”
