05/07/2016 BBC Newsline

The Audit Office has uncovered potential fraud in a ?1 billion

scheme of subsidies for renewable energy.

The Economy Minister has ordered spot-checks of projects to discover

The scheme has now closed but will continue to pay

Here's our business correspondent Julian O'Neill.

It's a scheme found out to be burning money,

abusing a generous system of financial support offered

to businesses and people switching to renewable heating.

A tariff is paid per kilowatt of heat burned for 20 years

but unlike in Britain there is no payment cap.

Energy can be burned for the sake of claiming.

The Audit Office cited the case of a farmer who, with no need

for a biomass boiler, installed one simply to heat

an empty shed to line up payments of ?1 million.

The economy minister, shocked by the audit findings,

I'm trying to take action in terms of getting consultants in to look

at the allegations around fraud and the key options are around cost

control and making sure that anything that can be done to keep

these costs under control can be taken and that's an important step

that we have to take to ensure that we do give confidence back

to the public and that we're learning the lessons

The Audit Office says the Stormont scheme was run

Had they been the same, it would have helped

As it is, Stormont has gone beyond the maximum the Treasury

I can't believe this has happened to the tune of 45 million,

to have over 140 million coming out of the budget going forward.

It's a litany of maladministration, litany of not effectively

Simon Hamilton says his DUP predecessors in what was

the Department of Enterprise are not to blame and that civil servants

The scheme has now closed but cleaning up the financial mess

is only just beginning, with inspectors having to set

the good applications from the bad in the hope of getting on top

An on-the-run drugs dealer has been arrested in Spain.

Mark Dunford was due to be sentenced in February last year for his part

in illegal drugs supply in Coleraine and Ballymena.

Police officers seized almost ?900,000 worth

Following his arrest at the weekend, the 41 year old, who had

an address in Coleraine, will now appear in court

Maintenance work has been suspended at a block of flats

in North Belfast because of threats against Housing Executive

It's not clear who is behind the threats in the New Lodge area

but the Housing Executive says it is taking them very seriously.

Sinn Fein say the threats should be lifted immediately.

This essential maintenance was looking ventilation and window

replacements, it reduces fuel poverty and increases the quality of

lives, these people need to come forward and speak for themselves

about the threats made that I'm calling not only on them to draw

their threats that also the community to come out and support

the residents, the Housing executive and the contractors.

The mother of a Lisburn man who died in Cambodia from a drugs overdose

She says he had taken drugs before and she had

Martin Hale was found in his room in the Cambodian capital Phnom Pehn.

Maggie Taggart has been speaking to his mother.

His family home in Lisburn is in mourning for the 34-year-old man.

Martin had been travelling in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia

for a few months but on Friday police came to tell his mother

He'd been staying in the Happy House budget guesthouse.

Cambodian police reported that he and his friend had

The family believe they were taking tablets with morphine and that

No matter who Martin met, he was not a bad fella.

Did you ever imagine this would happen?

When I used to say to him, please, son, don't take anything,

Martin was a father with one daughter and phoned his mother daily

His friend Dean, also from Lisburn, got out of the hospital and went

After a social media campaign, he was eventually found and is due

Neither man had travel insurance so the family is being helped

by a charity to get his body home for burial.

The trust has been absolutely brilliant.

Don't know what I'd have done without them.

They've done everything they can for us.

It's made it a lot easier to get him back home.

Knowing that he's never coming home alive.

Martin's family hope to have his body back

The Education Authority has been accused of misleading

an Assembly Committee for the second time in three months

about nursery provision in special schools.

The charges by the Education Committee's vice chair relate

to evidence the EA gave about Fleming Fulton

The Authority says the information it gave was accurate.

Our education correspondent Robbie Meredith has the story.

Three-year-old Charlie with his mum Angela.

He has cerebral palsy and poor eyesight.

At the last hearing MLAs asked why the nursery at this special

school hasn't been allowed to admit pupils.

Senior officials and the school governors didn't want its business

Senior officials said the school governors didn't want its business

I'm being very cautious of the fact that last night the Board

of Governors said they were very concerned that their issues

I've spoken to three school governors who were at that meeting.

They told me that they did not at any stage ask her not

to discuss Fleming Fulton's affairs with the committee.

The principle also sent a letter to MLAs in which he said...

The committee's chair said they had misled them.

She attempted to close the conversation on that issue

whereas all the members were clear that Fleming Fulton wanted a clear

message to the committee that they are open and that they are

ready to accept children for special educational needs nursery

The EA say they're satisfied the information they

It all leaves Angela and Charlie in limbo.

The other option would be another school which is 60 miles a day

for two and a half hours of school and for a child with sight loss

and cerebral palsy who needs support I don't feel that is an option.

Ideally I think the situation would be Fleming which is close

but unfortunately for some reason that doesn't seem to be an option.

Not sure if it's open or closed or what.

It's just been handled so badly that I don't think anybody knows.

The committee are due to question officials tomorrow.

A woman's body has been recovered from Black Lough in Dungannon.

The police are investigating the circumstances of her death.

A man in his 30s is critically ill in hospital after a gun attack

The victim, who is known to the police, was shot several

times this morning on the Dun Emer housing estate in Lusk.

Gardai are trying to establish if the shooting is part

of the Kinahan-Hutch gangland feud which has been linked to nine

Shots have been fired at a house in Colerainey.

Bullets were fired into a glass panel in the front door

of the property at Elms Park just after midnight last night.

An old pool in east Belfast is to get a new lease of life

Hundreds of thousands of cubic metres of water have been pumped

from an underground bore-hole into the pool in the grounds

Our reporter Mervyn Jess has been for a look around before it

Thousands of people drive past this every day but not

This lake and the former outdoor pool beside it lie

within the grounds of a stately home on the Belmont Road in east Belfast.

The pool was used for a time by pupils at nearby Campbell College

Now the new owner has handed the running of it to a charity.

It's boats, kevlar boats, big teams and it's exciting

Pushing each other in and rough and tumble.

Our home closed, then we moved somewhere else and then that closed

We've been searching for a new facility and this

is something completely unique and outstanding.

This was built in the 1920s and has been over year in restoration.

This pool holds 750,000 cubic metres of water.

But that's not its most unique feature.

It's going to be the largest natural swimming pool in Europe.

There's a bigger one being built in England but for now it has

the title of the largest natural pool in Europe and that means no

chemicals added or chlorine, nothing.

Just H2O, just a modern filtration system which includes

This transformation has cost around ?500,000.

It's given a new lease of life to this historic natural

no-additives swimming pool and come as a much-needed boost

It feels like it's been raining for 60 days. We had a largely dry

picture but over the coming week or so it is going to be a bit more

unsettled and that's because of the jet stream which has set over ours

and will be driving in the answer to whether from the Atlantic. That said

it's not going to be a complete wash-out. Don't panic. Tonight will

be dry but on the chilly side for some countryside areas. We could see

temperatures dipping to six or seven. Most towns and cities nine or

ten. Tomorrow there is can be a bit more cloud around unfortunately.

They will bring more rain as well, especially towards the west of first

before that rain begins to bridges with these words. Fairly patchy and

not very heavy and turning quickly drive behind it. If you're juggling

tomorrow, that rain nudges across the Channel reaching parts of

Scotland but before then it's a fine day across Britain with dry weather

and sunshine and bridges reaching low 20s. Across Ireland it will be

unsettled towards North and west. Here we will have rain. By the

afternoon largely cloudy but largely dry damages up to 19 or 20. Not long

before you see the next area of rain pushing for tomorrow evening. That

will merge eastwards across all places giving us a wet evening but

before then not a bad end the day, some sunny gaps bowl the rain

reaches us. The bridge is tomorrow 16 or 70 degrees. We are looking at

a good Friday for the most part on Thursday. Perhaps some drizzle but

not enough a lot. The badgers on the rise of the weekend, 19 or 20, maybe

21 that there will be some scattered showers.

Our next BBC Newsline is at 6:25 in the morning during Breakfast

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