Permanent Solution Should be Found for RHI Boiler Owners ‘Within Months’

Rebecca Black (PA)

A proper permanent solution should be found for those who bought renewable heat boilers in good faith under a Stormont botched green energy scheme, the Lady Chief Justice has said.

Dame Siobhan Keegan was speaking as senior judges ruled payment cuts to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme were lawfully made.

The ruling came following challenges by members of the Renewable Heat Association NI Ltd and farmer Thomas Forgrave against the Department for the Economy over changes to the scheme in 2017 and 2019.

The RHI scheme, set up in 2012, incentivised businesses and farmers to switch to eco-friendly boilers by paying them a subsidy for the wood pellet fuel required to run them.

But mistakes in its designs saw the subsidy rates set higher than the actual cost of the wood pellets, with applicants finding themselves able to burn to earn.

With Stormont facing an overspend bill of hundreds of millions of pounds, cost-control steps were taken.

Last year a public inquiry identified a multiplicity of mistakes in the running of the scheme.

The inquiry, chaired by retired judge Sir Patrick Coghlin, produced a 656-page, three-volume report containing 319 findings and making 44 recommendations.

Dame Siobhan found that the department was faced with a significant overspend which threatened the public purse, concluding “something had to be done to avoid a crisis”.

However, while the appeals were dismissed, Dame Siobhan said the senior judges had sympathy for those who have been adversely affected by the mistakes that have been made.

She said they expect government to act to find a settlement for boiler owners who acted in good faith over the next number of months, not years.

“By virtue of this judgment, we trust that as there is now clarity as to the legal issues. Renewed focus will now be applied to settling a proper permanent solution for boiler owners who acted in good faith,” she said.

“To our mind this should be over the next number of months rather than years.

“We would have hoped that a consensual solution could be reached on revised tariffs. If there is prevarication, we understand that further litigation may be the only option however, we would hope that it will not come to that.

“We conclude this judgment by recognising the position small and medium mass boiler owners have been left in by virtue of a botched scheme.

“We have sympathy for those who have been adversely affected by the mistakes that have been made, who have probably lost faith in government.

“However, we must answer the legal questions required of us which sorry, which require us to consider not just individual interests, but wider considerations of public interest.”