A public inquiry into Northern Ireland's botched green energy scheme has found no evidence of corrupt or malicious activity.
The report into the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) criticises first minister Arlene Foster for signing off on the project in 2012 - when she was energy minister - but finds that responsibility lay "not just with one individual or group".
It says the scheme should never have happened, suggesting it was a "project too far" even though based on a laudable premise.
The scandal over the scheme - widely referred to as 'cash for ash' - led to a major falling out between power-sharing partners the DUP and Sinn Féin and the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive in 2017.
Following the inquiry, the report published today states:“Responsibility for what went wrong lay not just with one individual or group, but with a broad range of persons and organisations involved, across a variety of areas relating to the design, approval, management and administration of the NI RHI scheme throughout its life.
"Across those different areas, there was a multiplicity of errors and omissions.
"There were repeated missed opportunities to identify and correct, or seek to have others correct, the flaws in the scheme."
It points to a number of shortcomings, but also notes that fail-safes against such problems "proved inadequate".
On Arlene Fosters' role, the report published today states: "The minister, in presenting the regulations to the assembly and asking for their approval, should have read them herself.
"Not least because in the inquiry's view to so do is a core part of a minister's job."
Making dozens of recommendations, the report states that it hopes the lessons learned will lead to a "better functioning" civil service and "much healthier devolved administration" in the North.
The inquiry considered 1.2 million pages of evidence and almost 11,000 spreadsheets, as well as hearing from more than 60 witnesses.
Arlene Foster response
Reacting to the publication of the report, Ms Foster said she welcomed its publication and she again apologised for her own failures in relation to the RIH scheme.
She said: "For my part I am determined to learn from my mistakes and to work to ensure that the mistakes and systematic failures of the past are not repeated.
"As I look back over the events of the last number of years and with the benefit of that hindsight there are many things that could and should have been handled in a very different way.
"However the unalterable truth is that none of us can change or relive that which has already happened but we can take the experience and use it to shape the road ahead."
She said she and the DUP will now reflect on the report, adding that she intends to make a "fuller statement" when the Northern Ireland Assembly meets on Monday.
