Ulster Unionist MP Danny Kinahan has slammed the Northern Ireland Executive for its failure in energy policy. His comments follow a recent damning Northern Ireland Audit Office report which revealed that mismanagement of the Renewable Heating Incentive is expected to cost the Block Grant £140 million over the next five years.

The MP for South Antrim, who sits on the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee at Westminster, said:

“The recent report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office makes clear that because of sheer incompetence from consecutive DUP DETI Ministers, Northern Ireland public services are to lose £140 million over the next five years. This is a self-inflicted wound, which will hurt most our already hard pressed schools and hospitals, where funding is already in scant supply. If the Department for Enterprise and Investment had the good sense to put in place the same safeguards which were present in the RHI scheme in Great Britain, then this mess could have been completely avoided.

“As the Auditor General said, “The fact that the Department decided not to mirror the spending controls in Great Britain has led to a very serious ongoing impact on the NI budget and the lack of controls over the funding has meant that value for money has not been achieved and facilitated spending which was potentially vulnerable to abuse.”

“It is now the case that Northern Ireland taxpayers have been left with a significant financial burden because of the mismanagement of the scheme by the Stormont department, and now, unlike the rest of the United Kingdom, there is no renewable heating scheme left in place. 

“I have become seriously concerned about how energy policy is being run in Northern Ireland, following former Minister Bell’s sudden halt to the Renewable Heating Incentive, and his U turns on the onshore wind Renewable Obligations, when he blamed others for his own lamentable performance.

“Today the NI Affairs Committee Inquiry into the electricity sector in Northern Ireland, which I asked to be set up, hosted another evidence session at Westminster.  It is becoming increasingly obvious, the longer the Committee Inquiry goes on, that there is now a policy vacuum at Stormont when it comes to energy policy. 

“It should be a source of embarrassment that some nine years after the devolved institutions were re-established, a Westminster committee is still required to mark the Executive’s homework. This case adds to the mounting evidence which suggests that the Northern Ireland Executive is incapable of good governance. For the sake of our public finances we will continue to scrutinise the Executive’s energy policy, both here in Westminster and as the Official Opposition at Stormont.”