EirGrid is increasingly centralising power in itself, in areas from management to procurement, but this is “potentially to the detriment of NI consumers”. Officials and politicians seemed oblivious or complicit. Day of reckoning: DUP leader and Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster arrives at DUP headquarters on 10 January 2017. he story has all the elements to lull you to sleep: state subsidies, bureaucratic jargon, poultry farms, committee meetings, wood pellet boilers. To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837. In fact Sam McBride’s, the power-sharing government in January 2017, the more you burned the richer you became. In fact Sam McBride’s Burned is a compelling exposé of a system gone rotten. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is facing its greatest test Sam McBride writes in the News Letter It would be an exaggeration to say that the Northern Ireland Civil Service is facing its greatest test. The scheme continued and was extended. I'll not try and convince you any longer. SONI’s governance arrangements “do not meet our vision for good governance”. McBride, drawing on interviews and evidence aired in the public inquiry, is forensic in apportioning blame. The investigation relates to probably the most important company most people have never heard of – SONI (the System Operator for Northern Ireland). The regulator has set out proposals to toughen the rules by which SONI is bound, and is asking the public for feedback on what it should do. Northern Ireland remains adrift. It’s about greed, sleaze and dysfunction, a saga of incompetence, … The result was a scramble to install boilers and run them 24/7. Sam McBride: Northern Ireland is in a breathtakingly undemocratic position which dishonest Boris Johnson knows is indefensible - yet he knowingly chose it | Belfast News Letter. It was highly irregular because it meant that every electricity consumer across Northern Ireland – whose bills were already among the highest in Europe – was paying for SONI to advertise itself to them, even though it has no product to sell and no one has any choice over whether to use the company. Sam McBride is the Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter, one of Northern Ireland’s daily newspapers, and the Northern Ireland political editor of the i newspaper in London, having begun his career a decade ago at the Belfast Telegraph. Farmers, the joke went, needed oven gloves to open sheds. He is a regular presence on … The crisis which many people, this writer included, believed might topple devolution did not. Sam McBride: I'm told by a DUP MLA that now only five MLAs - one of whom is Arlene Foster - have not signed the letter of no confidence in the leadership. In early 2017 Sinn Féin demanded Foster, by now first minister and DUP leader, step aside pending investigation. As political editor of the Belfast News Letter, McBride is a convincing messenger. Despite that expenditure on how it presents itself publicly, staff were angry that they had not received pay rises for years and in 2019 many SONI staff were on the verge of walking out on strike until the company made an 11th hour pay offer. While that was happening, a major report on electricity – which again has roots in Arlene Foster’s time as energy minister – has received scant attention. A compelling exposé of blunders and sleaze with implications for the election and Northern Ireland’s future in the UK. Another key proposal is for a genuinely independent SONI board – yet that board will be appointed by EirGrid, opening the potential for window-dressing. With timing that is fortuitous or cruel, depending on your perspective, Burned showers blistering sparks on the Democratic Unionist party just as it tries to persuade voters to return its 10 MPs to Westminster. The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has criticised Ian Paisley after an online post about reporter Sam McBride. Sam McBride, Political Editor of News Letter. As with RHI, there is scant evidence that energy division in the Department for the Economy has been on top of these problems. newsletter.co.uk - Sam McBride • 1d. Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite by Sam McBride, Merrion Press, £16.99/€18.95 Belfast Telegraph Most Read With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers — and consequently the revenue we receive — we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription. The objectives of management and staff “are predominantly aligned with the shareholder [the Irish government], without sufficient balance in respect of NI consumers”. Find out more: merrionpress.ie • merrionpress facebook • merrion press twitter • sam mcbride twitter The police assessment that the IRA was responsible precipitated an inevitable political crisis. On Good Friday, the Utility Regulator published the outcome of an investigation which it has been undertaking for 20 months. Burned has flaws. Moy Park, the food processing giant, stood to gain far more. Burned: The Inside Story of the ‘Cash-for-Ash’ Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite is published by Merrion (£16.99). (Belfast) News Letter Political Editor. It gets lost in the smoke of emails, phone calls, briefings and committee hearings involving bit players. McBride’s book delivers its own analysis. 17 October – Sam McBride, Broadcaster and Political Editor of the Newsletter 21 November – Anne Smyth – Ulster Dialects 19 December – JJ Tohill – The Northern Irish in Hollywood, USA 16 January – Dr Eamon Phoenix – The Partition of Ireland and its Consequences 20 February – Jim Bradley – The History of the Belfast Hills Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up. I fully support an … In fact Sam McBride’s Burned is a compelling exposé of a system gone rotten. Civil servants lacked expertise in renewable energy and winged it, cutting corners, ignoring warnings, making one blunder after another. This tweak made the subsidy more valuable than the cost of wood pellets used to heat boilers. Burned, a book by Sam McBride that charts Northern Ireland’s “cash-for-ash” scandal and the Democratic Unionist Party’s role in it, has become a … The botched renewable heat initiative (RHI), which spiralled out of control and triggered the implosion, is due soon for a denouement in the form of a public inquiry report that is expected to chronicle the fiasco in exhaustive, damning detail. Jonathan Bell, another DUP minister, barely skimmed his briefs, according to McBride. The unedifying picture of unionist politicians joining forces with Sinn Féin to squeeze taxpayer cash out of Whitehall, heedless of value, could further dent the DUP’s diminished stock with Tory Brexiters. Its governance responsibilities “are effectively discharged by EirGrid plc, and not by SONI Ltd” and the way EirGrid operates is “not designed to enable SONI to act as an equal partner, nor even to be perceived as an equal partner with its own guiding mind”. Some in the industry believe that when Jenny Pyper – now interim head of the civil service – was regulator the body was too weak in allowing the SONI problem to develop over many years. Farce as loyalist protest group claims credit for no one showing up to its protestSam McBride: On the streets and in Stormont, the next few months look bleak for Northern Ireland, Anarchy on the Shankill as men and women urge children to riot, with no hint of political protest, Still reeling from Boris Johnson’s betrayal, DUP founding member says he’s questioning the Union, Sam McBride: A failure of unionist diplomacy has left it more isolated than for decades, Leaked internal DUP minutes show fear of looming electoral collapse, and dismay at party’s direction, Brandon Lewis interview: Denial of the Irish Sea border is gone as SoS says parts of frontier are being ditched for good, Ban on British soil entering Northern Ireland is over for good, says NI Secretary of State Brandon Lewis, Sam McBride: Northern Ireland is now a proxy battleground for the EU and the UK – and that is dangerous, Sam McBride: After darkness, light: Reasons for real hope as Northern Ireland vaccine rollout accelerates – but first expect political rows, Sam McBride: Read the small print – the Irish Sea border may be impossible to remove, even if MLAs vote it down, Sam McBride: Shackled to Brexit, Arlene Foster can’t admit that it has been disastrous for Union – but Irish Sea border is radically reshaping NI. Patrick Maguire is a political correspondent for the New Statesman. But McBride is a deft storyteller and crafts memorable scenes. The organisation built much of Northern Ireland … But if Northern Ireland is to improve we need to develop a sixth sense in the wake of a crisis which seeks to find what we’ve missed. By Sam McBride. Subscribe. It is an example of how when politicians, the public and the media are looking in one direction, that means that we are not looking in another: there is a limited number of journalists and politicians with limited time; newspapers only have so many pages; television programmes only have a set length of time. Sam McBride. Thank you for reading this story on our website. For some reason, the company has been spending our money lavishly (it refuses to say just how lavishly) on a major spin operation – sponsorships of everything from Ulster Rugby to the GAA and even a pipe band, through to sponsorship of myriad business groups and events. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website. Arlene Foster’s time as DUP leader coming to an end as 75% of her MLAs sign letter of no confidence, LIVE UPDATES: Arlene Foster - SDLP leader Colum Eastwood says Arlene Foster was removed by DUP because she abstained on vote on gay conversion therapy, Letter circulating among DUP councillors tells Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds to go “immediately”, TV doctor Christian Jessen in 'last chance saloon' over false allegation Arlene Foster was having an extra-marital affair, Arlene Foster pulls out of scheduled meeting with Brandon Lewis after DUP leadership challenge bombshell, DUP in ‘open revolt’ at Arlene Foster’s leadership as eight constituency associations submit letters of concern, Arlene Foster News: DUP breaks silence to address threat to Arlene Foster's leadership of the party, Ex-DUP man: Whatever becomes of Foster remember – her party sold out NI, Busy NI road now reopened after two vehicle collision, Sinn Fein MP Finucane’s £56k law salary for as little as 40 hours a month, This website and its associated newspaper are members of Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Burned: The Inside Story of the “Cash-for-Ash” Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite. Eleven-year-old Sam McBride, who avails of the services at Northern Ireland Children Hospice, and mum Elaine, are calling on the people to join the Children’s Hospice ‘Jingle All the Way’ festive fundraising campaign. Burned, by News Letter political editor Sam McBride, is a demonstration of journalistic rigour and application which painstakingly spells out the scope of the circumstances surrounding the Renewable Heat Incentive […] Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. And it failed to cap the total subsidy. If it fails, the lights go out. Word spread: boilers meant profits – the more boilers and the more you burned the richer you became. Sam McBride is the Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter, one of Northern Ireland’s daily newspapers, and the Northern Ireland political editor of the i newspaper in London, having begun his career a decade ago at the Belfast Telegraph. David McCann meets Sam McBride, Political Correspondent at one of Northern Ireland’s biggest Newspapers, the Newsletter, to discuss how a PhD student can get into political journalism. It was a piece of political theatre which captured most of us. Throw in arcana about tariff methodologies and photovoltaic panels and it sounds bewildering as well as boring. The NUJ described it as an … September 21 2019 10:07 AM DUP MP Ian Paisley has issued an apology to News Letter journalist Sam McBride following an online post. Sam McBride is the News Letter’s Political Editor, having begun his career at the Belfast Telegraph after studying English literature and then a postgraduate course in newspaper journalism at Ulster University. Ultimately, if we as the public do not take a keener interest in these issues, then we will pay for it – literally. It is difficult to see how staff in a subsidiary company can be expected to go against that parent company. For the last fortnight, most political energy, and the focus of most media debate, has been on street disorder which began in the week before Easter. And yet without that, they cannot be equals. Years later, after the scandal broke, McBride used computer comparison software to discover that the new version of RHI omitted 107 words dealing with cost controls. Old habits endure: she recently told the BBC she would not read Burned but may have someone read it for her. He began a series of rolling resignations of DUP ministers who would leave office for several days before briefly coming back in for a few hours and then resign again. The SONI board which exists is presented as something of a nodding dog: “Plans, policies, cost and benefit allocations are not wholly transparent or approved by an effective SONI board”. “I am a little confused over what the problem is,” Andrew Crawford, Foster’s long-serving special adviser, emailed a colleague. Ship This Item — Qualifies for Free Shipping Buy Online, Pick up in Store Check Availability at Nearby Stores. He is a regular presence on … Sam McBride: Northern Ireland is in a breathtakingly undemocratic position which dishonest Boris Johnson knows is indefensible – yet he knowingly chose it … First Minister of Northern Ireland Arlene Foster could be facing a vote of no confidence as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) at a particularly fractious time for Northern Ireland's politics. In August 2015, former IRA man Kevin McGuigan was murdered in east Belfast’s Short Strand. The crisis about which we were then wholly unaware eventually did. However, there are inherent tensions in some of what is proposed and what is reasonable to expect. And yet, we now know it was at precisely this moment that those in the know were piling into the cash for ash scheme before it could be reined in. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. Posted by just now. I'm told that only one of those is not a DUP minister. Close. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Burned: The Inside Story of the ‘Cash-for-Ash’ Scandal and Northern Ireland’s Secretive New Elite - Kindle edition by McBride, Sam. I fully support an independent Northern Ireland or one that seeks to join the Republic. Some DUP special advisers, in contrast, wielded immense clout: Crawford emerges as a svengali who took a close interest in RHI and allegedly lobbied to keep the scheme open, a claim he denies. What in your view is the best way to get into political journalism? The projected cost overrun ran to hundreds of millions of pounds and Stormont shrugged. Abuse abounded. The people of Northern Ireland owe Sam McBride a great debt of gratitude for this book, and lifting up the lid of a stinking, corrupt Legislative Assembly and the many self-seeking and self-serving Members who populate it! “If we go over our … target all that will happen is that we will get more than our fair share of the UK pot. “At some point, if middle England realises it is paying for these sort of scandals, there will be a day of reckoning.”, McBride thinks cash-for-ash breathes life into the republican claim that Stormont can never work and only Irish unity is the answer – an increasingly plausible narrative amid Brexit and Northern Ireland’s approaching 2021 centenary. Paperback $ 24.95. He is a regular presence on regional and national radio and television in the UK and Ireland. DUP leaders threatened legal action in a vain effort to douse some revelations. However, three years ago I was intrigued while watching the Six Nations to see a fancy television ad from the company at half time – an expensive slot usually filled by top brands. Alex Kane: We’re too stuck in past to even consider an amnesty, Ex-paratroopers deny 1972 murder of Official IRA man. McBride calculates the adviser’s extended family stood to earn £6m from RHI boilers. Sam McBride is the Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter, one of Northern Ireland s daily newspapers, and the Northern Ireland political editor of the i newspaper in London, having begun his career a decade ago at the Belfast Telegraph. It’s too long. The story has all the elements to lull you to sleep: state subsidies, bureaucratic jargon, poultry farms, committee meetings, wood pellet boilers. Amid increasing concern about what was going on, she established this review which has been completed by her successor, John French. ‘One of the most important books on Northern Ireland politics since the Good Friday Agreement; and certainly, the most important on the Assembly and the function – and dysfunction – of devolution. Bluntly, the regulator says there is the potential for “inappropriately higher prices for NI consumers”, particularly by Eirgrid using complex accounting moves to hide what is going on. Sam McBride: On the streets and in Stormont, the next few months look bleak for Northern Ireland Anarchy on the Shankill as men and women urge children to riot, with no hint of political protest The UUP walked out of government, while the then first minister, Peter Robinson, cannily constructed a means of appearing tough while trying to keep the Stormont car on the road. Sam McBride: Shackled to Brexit, Arlene Foster can’t admit that it has been disastrous for Union – but Irish Sea border is radically reshaping NI. One of the most eagerly anticipated books on recent Northern Ireland politics had its formal launch at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast on Monday evening. Sam McBride. Politics, United Kingdom. Northern Ireland’s department of enterprise, trade and investment, then run by Arlene Foster, a Stormont minister and rising DUP star, essentially copied and pasted the Whitehall legislation – with one significant excision that hardly anyone noticed at the time. That's an overwhelming 85% of MLAs with the DUP whip telling Foster & Dodds to go It assumed the UK Treasury was footing the bill. Paul Frew and Jim Allister are very much the exception in asking awkward questions of SONI over recent years. Disturbingly revelatory.’ Alex Kane. Many millions of pounds have been flowing from SONI to EirGrid, and it’s not quite clear why. A whistleblower notified Foster’s department about abuses in 2013 and again in 2014 – to no avail. But SONI is not just a commercial company operating as a monopoly running critical infrastructure - it is doing so as an off-shoot of the Irish Government. Sam McBride 9.4.2021: @ FraserRaleigh sat down with Belfast News Letter political editor Sam McBride during a tumultuous week in Northern Ireland to discuss riots, Stormont, the centenary and what people in Westminster should know about Northern Irish politics. Central to the problem is that whereas SONI has a legal duty to act independently of its Dublin owner, it appears to have been hollowed out in key areas. Almost three years later there is still a power vacuum and Stormont, the seat of the assembly and executive sited on a grand estate outside Belfast, remains mothballed. Overall, there is “a potential, and increasing potential, for harm to result from the current operating and governance arrangements”. This image from the SONI television advert shows some of the control room which controls Northern Ireland’s electricity grid But if Northern Ireland … Piling fact on fact slows the narrative and at times clouds the bigger picture. Foster was clueless. Sam McBride: Northern Ireland is in a breathtakingly undemocratic position which dishonest Boris Johnson knows is indefensible – yet he knowingly chose it. Sam McBride: The most important firm in Northern Ireland you’ve probably never heard of – but are paying for One of the many damaging consequences of … Burned: The Inside Story of the 'Cash-for-Ash' Scandal and Northern Ireland's Secretive New Elite 320. by Sam McBride | Editorial Reviews. Sinn Féin withdrew from Stormont, collapsing devolution. They passed the buck, covered up mistakes and were too eager to please their political masters. Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. Those pressing for this to be investigated have often been whistleblowers who have done so at considerable risk to themselves. Sam McBride is the Political Editor of the Belfast News Letter, one of Northern Ireland’s daily newspapers, and the Northern Ireland political editor of the i newspaper in London, having begun his career a decade ago at the Belfast Telegraph. I would have thought that this is to Northern Ireland’s advantage.” When Whitehall said it would not cover the overrun, panic ensued. In a comprehensively devastating 120-page report, the regulator expresses deep concern about multiple aspects of what is going on. The RHI started in 2012 as a well-intentioned UK-wide effort to reduce carbon emissions by switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Political Editor — Belfast News Letter. The regulator’s report published two weeks ago states that the regulator is not persuaded that there is a problem with the company being owned by the Irish government. Verified. More than a decade ago, the company was sold to EirGrid – its equivalent in the Republic which is wholly owned by the Irish government. Whistleblowing is “controlled by the Eirgrid board”. The possibility of devolution falling apart for the first time in eight years necessarily was the focus of intense media scrutiny. Throw in arcana about tariff methodologies and photovoltaic panels and it sounds bewildering as well as boring. One farmer who heated an empty chicken shed anticipated making £1m over 20 years. Merrion Press, 409pp, £16.99. But that is where the good news ends for SONI. Along with the water supply, it is one of the most critical aspects of any national infrastructure. She refused. ©JPIMedia Publishing Ltd. 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