Courts

Libel action by Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill against DUP’s Sammy Wilson settled

Defendant agrees to make donation to charity chosen by Sinn Féin deputy leader

Lawyers for Michelle O’Neill said a 'financial settlement' had been agreed. Photograph: The Irish Times

Alan Erwin
Thu Dec 21 2023 - 17:27

DUP MP Sammy Wilson has accepted being wrong about when a whistleblower alerted Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill and Martin McGuiness to flaws in Northern Ireland’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme, the High Court has heard.

The clarification was read out on Thursday on behalf of Mr Wilson as part of a resolution reached in a libel action over claims made in a radio interview about the botched green energy initiative.

Lawyers for Ms O’Neill also said a “financial settlement” has been agreed which involves a donation going to a charity of her choice.

Proceedings centred on the political fallout from the bungled RHI scheme.

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Set up in 2012 to encourage businesses and farmers to switch from using fossil fuels to environmentally friendly wood pellet systems, flaws in the subsidy rate meant operators could increase their earnings simply by burning more.

In 2016 a whistleblower alleged that the scheme was being financially abused.

With an overspend running into hundreds of millions of pounds, it became known as the “cash for ash” scandal and ultimately led to the collapse of Northern Ireland’s powersharing government.

In January 2017 McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister at Stormont in protest at the DUP’s handling of the RHI affair. He died two months later.

Ms O’Neill, Sinn Féin’s vice-president, previously served as minister of agriculture and was at the forefront of her party’s response to issues surrounding the RHI scheme.

She sued over comments made by Mr Wilson just weeks after Stormont fell.

In court on Thursday it was announced that the case has been settled, with a statement read out by counsel on behalf of the DUP MP for East Antrim.

Brian Fee KC said: “In an interview on the Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster on January 30th, 2017, the defendant wrongly stated that the plaintiff and the then deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness, had been made aware of flaws in the RHI scheme by a whistleblower in June 2015.

“The defendant now accepts that the plaintiff and the deputy first minister were not made aware of flaws in the RHI scheme until January 2016, when contact was made by a second whistleblower.”

Mr Fee added: “The defendant now accepts that this was an error on his part.”

Mr Justice McAlinden agreed to stay the case on those terms.

Outside court Ms O’Neill’s solicitor, Pádraig Ó Muirigh, said she was satisfied with the outcome.

“The parties have agreed a financial settlement within which the defendant has agreed to make a contribution to the plaintiff’s costs and a donation has been made to a charity chosen by the plaintiff,” he said.

“The objective all along in this legal action was to correct the public record in relation to the date of knowledge of both Martin McGuinness and my client, Michelle O’Neill, of the flaws in the RHI scheme.”

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