Debate contribution: Planning and Waste Water Infrastructure

Debate contribution by Dr Caoimhe Archibald on 14 September 2026.

MLA: Dr Caoimhe Archibald
Party at the time: Sinn Féin
Date: 14 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution (made as a minister)
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: Planning and Waste Water Infrastructure
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5685442

Text

I thank the Member for his question. As I said, the Executive as a whole have a focus on the need to invest in our waste water infrastructure. We do consider it a constraint to building houses, to which he referred, and to economic development. We are therefore focused on that. I support the Infrastructure Minister's three-pronged approach. She has set out, as her predecessor did, an approach that will help unlock capacity and deal with the water that is going into the system in the first place. There are challenges at both ends. We need to look at how we can do things more innovatively, and the Infrastructure Minister and I, along with NI Water and Invest NI, are currently working on doing that. We are looking to see whether there are things that we can do to support business in order to free up capacity. I assure the Member that we have a focus on the issue and that the Executive as a whole have a focus on it.

171 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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