The passing of a Stormont Bill to formally close a botched green energy scheme in Northern Ireland has been welcomed across the Assembly chamber.
The RHI (Closure of Non-Domestic Scheme) Bill reached its final stage on Tuesday, and is now awaiting royal assent.
It provides the legal framework for closure, with detailed operational arrangements to follow in the closure regulations, subject to approval by the Assembly.
Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald hailed a consensus for the first time between political parties, scheme participants and the Treasury on how to manage it.
The RHI scheme, set up in Northern Ireland in 2012, incentivised businesses and farmers to switch to eco-friendly boilers by paying them a subsidy for the wood pellet fuel needed to run them.
But mistakes in its designs meant the subsidy rates were set higher than the actual cost of the wood pellets, and applicants found themselves able to “burn to earn”.
The scandal contributed to the collapse of devolved government in Northern Ireland in January 2017, when former deputy first minister Martin McGuinness took issue with the DUP’s handling of the scheme.
With Stormont facing an overspend bill of hundreds of millions of pounds, cost-control steps were taken in 2019.
The New Decade, New Approach agreement, which restored the Stormont institutions in 2020, included a commitment that RHI would be closed down and replaced by another scheme to reduce carbon emissions.
The same year, a public inquiry identified a multiplicity of mistakes in the running of the RHI scheme.
Speaking in the Assembly on Tuesday, Ms Archibald said she is confident that the proposals for closure and arrangements for existing participants will enable the scheme to be closed in a way that is fair to both participants and the rate payer.
“This Bill is vital as it lays the foundation for the closure of the scheme, reiterates the department’s commitment to ensuring that this is achieved in a way that is fair to the participants and to the wider taxpayers,” she said.
Stormont Economy Committee chairman and DUP MLA Phillip Brett commended the reaching of a consensus, as well as the proposals for the scheme’s closure.
SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin welcomed what she termed the “closing chapter of the darkest episodes in the history of devolution”.
“The Renewable Heat Incentive Scheme should have been an opportunity. It should have helped Northern Ireland transition towards cleaner energy and supported businesses to reduce costs and emissions, instead, it became synonymous with waste, with scandal and with public anger,” she said.
“This Bill’s significance is much broader than the Bill itself, closing the scheme finally draws a line under a policy failure that casts a long shadow across our politics and these institutions.”
Ms McLaughlin added that huge challenges around energy policy affordability and decarbonisation remain.
“We need to expand renewable generation, we need to improve energy security, we need to lower costs for households, for businesses that remain exposed to volatile political and global markets, but we can only do that if there is public confidence in the decisions that we make here,” she said.
“That means transparency, that means profit scrutiny, and that means accountability, and it means getting policy right from the very beginning, and the public expect better from us after RHI.”
Alliance MLA David Honeyford also welcomed the Bill, describing RHI as an “episode that will live long in the memory of this place, but something we can now put to bed”.
“I do also want to acknowledge that the minister has managed to bring all parties together here to bring this to closure, and that’s something to thank you for and to be welcomed,” he said.
“But the ghost of RHI cannot hold the department back as we move forward. We have got to move forward now to be able to transition away from fossil fuels and on to renewables.”
UUP MLA Diana Armstrong welcomed a resolution to the RHI scheme, and called for a way forward in terms of renewable energy.
“Northern Ireland urgently needs a credible renewable energy policy framework that matches the scale of global competition,” she said.
“Investors are already looking to jurisdictions with clear pathways for grid capacity expansion, offshore wind deployment and long-term renewable integration. If we do not act quickly, those investors will go elsewhere.
“We need a grid capable of supporting large-scale renewable generation and a planning system aligned with our energy ambitions, and we need an offshore policy that signals to the market that Northern Ireland is serious about becoming a leader, not a slow adopter, in clean energy.”