Opinion

Newton Emerson: Yet another renewable energy scandal and one that could outstrip cost of RHI

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Kieran Donnelly, Comptroller and Auditor General warned of `a number of strategic shortcomings'
Kieran Donnelly, Comptroller and Auditor General warned of `a number of strategic shortcomings' Kieran Donnelly, Comptroller and Auditor General warned of `a number of strategic shortcomings'

The Audit Office might appear to have pulled its punches over Northern Ireland’s latest renewable energy scandal.

It has published a report this week into subsidies introduced in 2010 for wind turbines and anaerobic slurry digesters.

Stormont’s former Department of Enterprise, under then minister Arlene Foster, is found to have changed a scheme copied over from Britain after consulting “those who would benefit most”, leading to “a significant risk... of financial overcompensation.”

The Sinn Féin-controlled Department of Agriculture also supported the changes.

So far, so familiar - and the potential £5 billion cost dwarfs RHI.

The Audit Office was reluctant to accuse farmers and landowners of gaming the system by dotting turbines and digesters individually around the countryside, attracting more subsidy than larger machines.

Marcus Leroux, the investigative journalist who uncovered the story, says it is “as though a family with a 10-year-old is claiming child benefits for two five-year-olds and the inspector turns up and says ‘no, there’s definitely ten years of child in that house’.”

However, we are fortunate to have a report at all. Auditor General Kieran Donnelly went out of his way to examine the scheme - unlike with RHI, its subsidies are added to electricity bills rather than tax bills, so they are arguably outside the Audit Office’s ‘public money’ remit.

Larger concerns are unfortunately well outside Donnelly’s pay grade.

The scandal came to light after farmers complained they were being exploited by London-based venture capitalists, who were promoting the scheme to get a cut of Stormont’s mistake.

Financial regulation is not devolved and the City of London is largely left to regulate itself.

By far the most important issue is ammonia pollution from anaerobic digesters, seriously affecting land, water and air.

Northern Ireland is now responsible for 12 per cent of the UK’s ammonia emissions, well out of proportion to its size.

Waste and the environment “is a separate subject area”, as the Audit Office notes, although it promises to monitor it for a possible future report.

This issue should be addressed by an independent environmental protection agency. January’s New Decade, New Approach deal pledges to create one but the executive is still stalling, thanks to a decade of lobbying by farmers and landowners.

The same deal promises a raft of reforms and new oversight arrangements for Stormont and the civil service, all as a result of RHI. Coronavirus has caused this to be lost in the smoke and it is hard to avoid the impression that suits everyone involved.

The RHI inquiry was a damp squib, three years in the making.

Energy regulators in Britain have been brought in over the latest scandal, as they were over RHI. But while they can shut down installations and stop subsidies they cannot propose changes to our politics and administration.

Nor is the public blameless. Faced with systemic failure we are too easily rallied to our respective flags, with nationalists decrying Northern Ireland as unworkable and unionists defending our wee country.

RHI provided a demonstration of this, although the Alliance surge revealed its limits. Another cynical truce is doubtless on the cards as the DUP and Sinn Féin are implicated again. This is our failure’s unique aspect: the renewable energy scandal is otherwise a familiar tale across the world.

So what is to be done?

Faced with these type of stories in general in Northern Ireland, the option of simply calling the police in the first instance should never be underestimated. Stormont’s watchdog public accounts committee has occasionally, despairingly considered it.

Anyone can dial 999 if they suspect financial wrongdoing or misfeasance in public office. It is surprising such calls are made so rarely and disappointing the PSNI does not take its role in upholding the relevant laws more seriously. Even a spot of friendly police questioning is a prospect that terrifies officials, and indeed most people. Fear of it galvanised what little action there has been on RHI and has just led to two prosecutions over the 2015 sale of Nama’s Northern Ireland loan book.

More broadly, there is a huge, empty space in the public sphere for activists, academics, lawyers and civic society groups to pursue better administration and governance with the same vigour applied to more ‘traditional’ topics of rights, equality, justice and legacy.

The Good Friday Agreement promises us government that is “effective” as well as equal. That does not make it an either/or situation. But after all these years, can we not demand both?