Arlene Foster’s position as Northern Ireland’s first minister is under increasing threat after Martin McGuinness called on her to step down while her involvement in a costly heating scheme is investigated.
Ms Foster is facing increasing pressure to launch a public inquiry into a renewable heating scheme after she was accused of keeping it open. Mr McGuinness, the deputy first minister, phoned Ms Foster last night and asked her to step aside.
The DUP insisted yesterday that Ms Foster would stay on as first minister and said she did not take orders from Sinn Fein. She has apologised for not introducing cost controls in the Renewable Heat Incentive programme, which was created when she was in charge of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.
Jonathan Bell, a DUP MLA, alleged that Ms Foster had ordered him to keep the scheme open last year when he was the economy minister despite warnings from the British Treasury that it was wasting public money.
Mr Bell claimed Ms Foster had “abusively shouted” at him when discussing the issue in January of this year, and that attempts had been made to remove references to the DUP leader from official documents.
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Mr McGuinness said last night that any taxpayers’ money wasted in the scheme needed to be retrieved.
“It is my belief the only way to establish the truth, and rebuild the reputation of the institutions, is to urgently establish a fully independent investigation into this matter. In addition, I also said that, in the public interest, she [Ms Foster] should stand aside from the role as first minister while that investigation is underway and at least until an initial assessment had been concluded into the veracity of all the allegations,” Mr McGuinness said.
“That is what I would do if I was in this situation. I asked the first minister to take the time and consider this suggestion carefully.”
The DUP said: “The first minister will not be stepping aside, but instead is focused on ensuring the full facts about this issue emerge and proposals are brought forward which can make a significant reduction in the future financial burden the executive would face.
“The first minister does not take her instructions from Sinn Fein, but from the electorate.”
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Ms Foster is facing a motion of no confidence in a specially reconvened session of the Stormont assembly on Monday. The SDLP has tabled the motion, though it is unlikely to pass due to the voting strength of the DUP.
The scheme was designed to encourage businesses to switch from burning fossil fuels to wood biomass but paid out more than the fuel cost, meaning users could earn more if they burned more. This led to claims of an “ash for cash” scam amid reports that some buildings were being heated unnecessarily. It is estimated that the initiative could cost £400 million over 20 years.
Mike Nesbitt, the Ulster Unionist leader, said that Stormont had been left in the “gutter” of public opinion because of the scandal and called on Ms Foster to stand down and publish all paperwork linked to the scheme. “If ever there was a time for total openness and transparent, it is today,” he said.
Stormont’s public accounts committee has invited Ms Foster to appear before it to explain how cost controls were not introduced in the scheme. Opposition parties have claimed that an independent inquiry must be set up as soon as possible because the number of DUP politicians on the committee means that it cannot guarantee independence.
In an interview with the BBC’s A Nolan Show Investigation on Thursday night, Mr Bell accused DUP special advisers of blocking his efforts to clamp down on the heating subsidy late last year. Mr Bell claimed that Ms Foster had directly ordered him to keep the scheme open.
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“I was ordered to appear in front of the first minister. In the strongest terms both in volume and force Arlene Foster as first minister overruled me and told me to keep the scheme open,” he said.
“She was highly agitated and angry because I had been refusing the whole way for the last period and telling them I wasn’t going to do this.” He said there was a “hostile” atmosphere of “fear”.
Mr Bell’s own party criticised him for the interview, describing it as a “ham-fisted attempt” to distract from his own failure to shut down the heating scheme.
On Thursday night she apologised for not implementing more controls on the scheme at its inception, but claimed the executive could still take action that would potentially halve the overspend. “Of course I’m sorry I didn’t put in cost controls,” she said.
She added that she would not be stepping down from her role. Ms Foster has repeatedly insisted that she had nothing to hide in relation to the scheme.
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“Unfortunately to date there has been 10 per cent fact and 90 per cent spin in relation to this story, so it’s important the facts get out there and I am looking forward to doing that on Monday,” Ms Foster had said.