Adrian Cochrane-Watson, an Ulster Unionist candidate in South Antrim, has said the DUP and Sinn Fein colluded in keeping the rest of the Assembly in the dark about the full extent of the financial overspend in the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme a year ago.

Mr Cochrane-Watson said:

“I was on the Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Investment during the period when the RHI ran out of control, and can say without fear of contradiction that we were kept in the dark about the full extent of the financial overspend.

“After the media started focussing on RHI after the Spotlight programme in early December the DUP’s main line of defence was to try to spread the blame.  They blamed everyone else - officials, opposition parties and members of the former Enterprise Committee.  In particular, a vote in February 2016 was misrepresented as an example where the opposition voted against closing the runaway costs of the RHI.  This is inaccurate on many levels:

“Firstly, this was the properly tiered tariff scheme with cost controls introduced in November 2015.

“Secondly, the tariffs were set to run until the end of the financial year 2015/16.  We were arguing that there should be a controlled wind down, rather than a sudden stop and certainly not an open ended commitment.

“Third, and most importantly, we were not told the full facts.  We did not know at the time, but it has been since become abundantly clear, that behind the scenes there had been a massive row between the then Enterprise Minister Mr Bell and the then First Minister Mrs Foster about whether and when the scheme should be stopped. 

“We now know that the First and deputy First Ministers knew of the full financial overspend in January 2016.  That means both the DUP and Sinn Fein knew then as well. We know that Conor Murphy of Sinn Fein met with the then DUP Minister Jonathan Bell and apparently helped convince him to keep the scheme open for an extra two weeks. That explains why those two parties both voted the same way to support the statutory rule on 15 February which suspended the scheme from 29 February. 

“Reviewing what was said in the debate on 15 February 2016 and the way the DUP and Sinn Fein voted together, I can only come to one conclusion:  they knew exactly how bad the overspend was, they knew that they were to blame for the costs getting so out of control, so they colluded to vote together to close the revised scheme at an agreed point - without disclosing the full facts to the rest of the committee or other MLAs.  That was enough to get both of them through the small matter of an election last May - before the complete financial disaster of the RHI was fully revealed.

“The full extent of the overspend became clear to everyone after the NI Audit Office reported in July 2016. The Public Inquiry needs to find out exactly who knew what and when. Already, Special Advisers have resigned and it is obvious that there was high level political interference to delay the change of tariffs in the autumn of 2015 - with massive negative implications for the public purse. 

“Now it is becoming apparent that a year ago, there was also collusion between the DUP and Sinn Fein over when the RHI scheme should be suspended. This election is about the incompetency of the DUP/Sinn Fein coalition government and that is why there needs to be change at Stormont.”