The ‘cash for ash’ inquiry

Sir, – Your extract from Sam McBride's book "Burned: the Inside Story of the Cash-for-Ash Scandal and Northern Ireland's New Elite" (News Feature, October, 15th) is indeed timely, given that is almost three years since the Renewable Heat Incentive Inquiry (RHI) was established to investigate the RHI scheme in its entirety. Despite comprehensive recommendations from the UK's Institute for Government in 2017 on how public inquiries should be conducted and the institute's strong admonition that "interim reports should be published as rapidly as possible, setting out any immediate necessary changes", nothing whatsoever has emerged from the RHI inquiry in terms of reports. I would assume that, in advance of the forthcoming UK general election,voters in Northern Ireland would be anxious to know precisely how £500 million of public money was spent and how their public representatives, ministers and officials conducted themselves. – Yours, etc,

MARTIN McDONALD,

Terenure,

Dublin 12.