ASIDE from members availing of millions of pounds worth of subsidies, the Ulster Farmers Union's links to the botched RHI scheme can be traced back to a year before its introduction.
One of 80 respondents to a consultation by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in 2011, the UFU warned then of 'over-incentivisation' and stated that tariffs should "not necessarily" be guaranteed over a 20-year period.
However, farmers would go on to make up the majority of claimants to the scheme once launched and in July 2015 senior figures within the UFU were urging enterprise department officials to delay plans to cut payments.
Tom Forgrave, a member of the UFU's poultry committee, said farmers had bank loans of up to £1m for expansions subject to planning approval and their businesses could be put in jeopardy by the change.
He suggested that rather than alter the tariffs on October 1 2015, the department should wait until January 1 2016.
In a separate email, senior policy officer Christopher Osborne also asked for a "grace period".
Both UFU officials were founding members of the Renewable Heat Association, which is currently taking legal action against changes aimed at cutting the scheme's overspend.
Many other UFU members subsequently signed up to the RHA and their identities are protected under court injunction.
The union has denied suggestions it influenced any politicians or their special advisers in relation to concerns over changes to RHI tariffs.
Of the hundreds of farmers availing of the generous subsidies, amongst them are four presidents of former presidents of the UFU, including current head Barclay Bell.
Mr Bell uses a boiler on farm woodland to dry grain, while Harry Sinclair, who was president when RHI was first set up, has boilers on his farm outside Draperstown.
Ian Marshall who was UFU president at the time of his RHI application in 2015, has three burners on his Co Armagh farm, while John Gilliland, who led the UFU from 2001 to 2003, has three RHI boilers on his farm in Derry.
In response to reports over its links to the flawed scheme, the UFU chief executive Wesley Aston has criticised media coverage.
"They are allowing those with things to hide to divert the media into chasing those who have done nothing wrong, and who invested a lot of their own money to cut costs and to meet the pressures exerted on them by those to whom they sell their end product."
