Attorney General John Larkin considering challenging legality of RHI scheme
The attorney general of Northern Ireland John Larkin has said that he is considering challenging the legality of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI scheme) He said yesterday that he may bring a case against the Department for the Economy for introducing the RHI scheme before it went to the full executive. He made the comments during a separate case at Belfast's High Court yesterday. "My primary responsibility is as guardian of the rule of law," Mr Larkin said. "If it's an issue about public money and a claim being made against the government founded on the 2012 regulations, I may be the only person able to put a hand up."
Ulster Unionist Party Leader and Strangford candidate Mike Nesbitt described the intervention as another ‘bizarre twist’ in the saga.
Mr Nesbitt said: “Just when you think the Renewable Heat Incentive fiasco could not get any stranger, we have the bizarre twist that, in effect, the Executive through its top legal advisor is suing itself.
“This is dysfunctionality on an unprecedented scale.
“The Attorney General’s court intervention comparing the lack of Executive sign off on the recent statutory rule attempting a one-year mitigation of RHI overspend to the similar lack of Executive sign off on the original 2012 RHI scheme adds yet another layer to this fiasco.
“How could it get to this stage before the Attorney General came up with this left field intervention? Surely the legal team in the Department of Finance and Personnel would have checked the legality of the regulations on RHI which were produced by the old Department for Enterprise, Trade and Investment in the period 2012 to 2016?
“What are we paying all these Departmental solicitors for if it gets to this point? They are meant to ensure that our devolved government makes regulations which are lawful and not wide open to challenge. Of course this Executive has form when it comes to Ministers suing other Ministers- witness former Finance Minister Hamilton taking former Agriculture Minister O’Neill to the High Court over the reallocation of European funds for farmers in 2013. However, the intervention of the Attorney General in RHI takes this to a whole new level of dysfunctionality.
“We will await the outcome of the two-day court hearing next month with interest, but it is already clear that any suggestion that the Minister for the Economy has produced a legally sound solution to the massive overspend on RHI, even in the short term, looks increasingly fanciful. All the signs are that the whole Renewable Heat Incentive is being tied up in legal knots.”
The 'cash for ash' scandal is set to cost the Northern Ireland taxpayer £490m over the next 20 years if a solution is not found.
The aim of the scheme was to encourage businesses to use more renewable energy. Businesses taking part in the scheme ended up receiving more in funding than the cost of fuel and the scheme became oversubscribed.