A PROMINENT Northern Ireland farmer – and former president of the Ulster Farmers Union – who benefitted from the province’s Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, has urged people to stop the “witch hunt” against those who joined it in good faith. 
Ian Marshall, who farms near Markethill in County Armagh, was president of the Ulster Farmers Union back in 2015 when he enrolled in NI’s version of the RHI, which offered a financial incentive for businesses and other non-domestic users to install renewable heat systems on their premises, including biomass boilers, solar thermal systems and heat pumps.
But the credibility of the NI RHI now lies in tatters, as it has emerged that the Northern Ireland Executive failed to put a realistic cap on the incentives to be paid under the 20 year scheme, resulting in an estimate £400million overspend to nearly 2000 claimants. 
This is in contrast to the RHI as it operates in the rest of the UK and Scotland, where ‘robust’ oversight from Ofgem, including caps on claims, has kept the scheme within its assigned budget – and, operators note, stopped wood-fuelled boilers being prematurely worn-out by constant ‘full-tilt’ burning of the kind that has damned the NI scheme.
Such is the political row over NI’s “cash for ash” that the province’s historic power-sharing agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP is now in jeopardy – all of which has shone an uncomfortable light on the farming beneficiaries of the controversial scheme.
“It is time this witch hunt ends,” said Mr Marshall. “There are genuine businesses, like ours, that have legitimately signed up for this scheme and are being made to feel as if we have done something wrong. 
“It took me a long time and a lot of research to persuade myself that this scheme was going to benefit our business. I have invested thousands in it and was audited by the Department for Economy and Ofgem just a few weeks ago.
“My system passed all the inspections without any queries. I have no problem if they want to come and audit me again. Everything is above board here.”
Mr Marshall installed three woodchip burners in a shed which he uses to dry sawdust, woodchip and grain.
After quitting dairy farming, he had changed the business into rearing heifers, with around 500 cubicles to bed on a daily basis. Instead of buying in dried sawdust to bed the cattle, he decided to dry ‘significant amounts’ of sawdust with wood chip burners. 
“We are high users of sawdust and we were buying material that had been kiln dried by gas or diesel systems,” he explained. “I thought if we put in these burners we could dry the sawdust and other materials more environmentally friendly.”
Mr Marshall called on Stormont to stop the name calling and sort the mess out: “We need the Executive to stop the petty squabbling, take control of this situation and sort it out. 
“Fundamentally, this is a good scheme but it has been poorly managed. The genuine businesses that have joined the scheme are being made to feel like criminals. I have not personally heard of any people who are misusing the scheme, but if there are any it’s time they were weeded out.”