'Incompetence from beginning to end' - @patsymcglone MLA on renewable heating initiative scandal

"The biggest financial scandal in living memory" - the words from an exchange between the Chairperson of Stormont's Public Accounts Committee Robin Swann and Andrew McCormick the Permanent Secretary from the Department of Economy just last month. They're talking about a scheme called the renewable heating initiative. It was meant to help local businesses move to green energy heating systems. But serious systematic failings of the scheme will hit Northern Ireland's budget by hundreds of millions of pounds over the next 20 years. Different ways of controlling costs were used. And advice from a whistleblower seemingly ignored. It was a scheme which that whistleblower said was being abused by businesses. Businesses who were putting in heaters that they didn't need so they could profit by up to a million pounds over 20 years. That whistleblower sent a warning email in 2014 to the Department of Enterprise, two years before the scheme closed, but advice in it was ignored. Because of that hundreds of millions pounds of the Northern Ireland budget, your money, has been lost. On today's Nolan Show we take an in depth look at the Renewable Heating Initiative.