The Economy Minister is being urged to explain what areas of expenditures are being cut to pay for the overspend in the Renewable Heating Initiative (RHI).

Ulster Unionist MLA Steve Aiken said he was told £20 million from the resource budget had been set aside to meet pressures arising from the scheme.

He said: "Whilst urgent clarity is required about the exact figures, we are talking about a major and self-inflicted hole in the Department for the Economy's budget. I am proposing the Committee writes to the Minister asking how these major extra costs are going to be absorbed in year by the Department for the Economy. The question we need answered is simple: what programmes and areas of normal Departmental expenditure, targeted at growing the Northern Ireland economy, are being abandoned this year, and in the years to come because of the RHI scandal?."

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SDLP MLA Daniel McCrossan has described the mismanagement of the RHI as potentially the "biggest scandal" since devolution began.

He said: "After shockingly poor planning and obscene mismanagement, this scheme is set to cost the public purse more than £1billion over the next 20 years. This is far in excess of the £30million annual Barnett payment allocated to us from the adoption of a similar scheme in Britain.

"It is hard to overstate how relaxed Ofgem were in their oversight of this scheme. They didn’t take minutes of meetings or records of telephone calls. They inspected only 12 cases from thousands of applications, and found that 11 of these would become problematic. They revealed themselves to be asleep at the wheel.

"The public should get used to what will become a regular feature of our public finances for the next two decades. The Finance Minister must tell us what is being cut to pay for this monumental blunder on the part of the now First Minister in what is potentially the biggest scandal since devolution began."

(CD/LM)