Debate contribution: Environmental Crime
Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on .
- MLA
- Mr Andrew Muir
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 7 September 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Environmental Crime
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5670065
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The policy plays a key role, but it is important that there be a review. I have also expressed my view on the situation. Where some operators are non-compliant, we have focused on bringing them back into compliance, only for them to do it again, after which we focus again on bringing them back into compliance rather than on having a situation in which I move towards taking enforcement action under the law. On farmed animal welfare, it is not lost on me that, when it comes to the case in Fivemiletown, two years were spent on bringing the farmer, who was subsequently convicted of animal welfare offences, back into compliance. The balance is wrong. Yes, we need to focus on bringing people into compliance, but we also need to move faster and firmer on environmental crimes and farm animal welfare.
141 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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