An announcement will be made by economy minister Simon Hamilton in the new year on measures to reduce the cost of the Renewable Heat Incentive in Northern Ireland, first minister Arlene Foster has said.

Speaking in the assembly on Monday morning, Mrs Foster said that minister Hamilton would make a statement to the assembly “as soon as possible in the new year” on the cost saving measures.

“The hope and intent is to reduce significantly the cost of the scheme to the executive’s budget, but the details are still subject to considerable further work,” she said.

The RHI paid a tariff to scheme participants for the production of heat from renewable resources and was widely taken up in the poultry sector for heating houses. However, it closed to applicants in February 2016 after a significant overspend emerged.

Current estimates putting the cost of RHI over 20 years at £1.18bn, with approximately £400m of this to be covered by the NI executive. “The most important issue for us now is to mitigate the costs of the scheme,” Mrs Foster said on Monday.

Potential changes

It remains unclear what the potential cost-saving changes relate to, and if it is possible for changes to be made to signed contracts with RHI accredited boiler owners, which have set tariffs agreed for 20 years.

However, on Monday Mrs Foster alluded that cost-saving measures could focus on addressing abusive use of the RHI and not reducing payments to legitimate claimants.

“We want to be fair to all who responded to the incentive as it was intended to operate, and that our process resolves completely the widespread abuse of the scheme,” she said.

Mrs Foster made her address after an eventful morning at Stormont where MLAs from parties other than the DUP walked out of the assembly chamber as she began her statement.

MLAs took issue that the statement did not receive approval by deputy first minister Martin McGuiness and was therefore not a ministerial statement representing the office of first and deputy first minister. Mrs Foster faces a vote of no confidence tabled by the SDLP in the afternoon.

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