RHI: 'A dirty word' says one boiler owner

There are 2,198 RHI boiler owners across Northern Ireland.

Over half of those - 1,114 - are on farms, mainly poultry farms.

UTV has spoken to numerous poultry farmers since the RHI scandal broke in 2016.

Each one has detailed how they signed up to it in good faith, trusting that a government run scheme would be well organised and supported.

But each of those farmers, and a few other business owners, have said since the RHI controversy and the collapse of Stormont, they have been vilified by other family members, neighbours and work colleagues in the belief that they have made thousands from the scheme, or worse have been fraudulently claiming back the tariffs available.

The initial whistleblower reports that a farmer was heating an empty shed and claiming £1million in tariffs, while never proven, has not gone away.

Many recipients have spoken to don’t want to appear on camera to talk about RHI.

As one poultry farmer based in County Tyrone put it: “RHI is now a dirty word”.

The man who also wants to remain anonymous has been a chicken farmer for 15 years.

He joined the RHI scheme in February 2015, installing four 99kw biomass boilers on his farm.

He heard about it through word-of-mouth, from other farmers in his area.

He took out a £230,000 loan from a bank to pay for the boilers and their installation.

Between 2015-2017 the farmer received £220,000 in payments from the RHI scheme.

In 2019 that figure was £8,100 due to the changes in the law to cut tariff payments.

The farmer has also had to pay around £3,200 a year to service his boilers.

Clearly, in the first few years of the scheme this poultry farm benefited from the overly generous RHI payments.

But since the tariff cuts, it has had to manage the massive loan repayments, servicing and the cost of fuel while receiving just £8,000 a year in RHI tariffs.

The poultry farm is a family business, but hasn’t been able to sustain all the family members for the last few years, because of the impact of RHI.

However, the farmer is philosophical and says his business is not one of the worst affected and he will have cleared his loan debt by this summer.

But, like others he says he has lost complete trust in government run schemes.