Michelle O’Neill was the agriculture minister when the RHI was launched

Northern Ireland’s agriculture department organised 58 workshops for farmers interested in the Renewable Heat Incentive while Michelle O’Neill was minister for agriculture, documents obtained by The Times show.

Mrs O’Neill, the new leader of Sinn Fein in the North, claimed this week that she was unaware of how costly the scheme was until February of last year and that it was “entirely of the DUP’s making”.

The Times has obtained presentations from the workshops in which several officials from Mrs O’Neill’s department stressed the financial benefits of the incentive.

Figures released by the Northern Ireland economy department show that the majority of the 2,000 business claimants were farmers, all of whom applied to the scheme while Mrs O’Neill was agriculture minister.

Several of the workshops