Debate contribution: Coastal Forum: Update

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on 20 October 2026.

MLA: Mr Andrew Muir
Party at the time: Alliance Party
Date: 20 October 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Oral Answers to Questions
Heading: Coastal Forum: Update
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5798659

Text

Thank you, Mike. I did enjoy a previous engagement with that forum. The Northern Ireland coastal forum was established to bring together relevant Departments, councils and other interested parties to seek to develop a more strategic approach to addressing coastal erosion. The key issue is that no Department is responsible for coastal erosion risk management. Therefore, no Department has authority to use public money to undertake activities such a coastal erosion vulnerability mapping or develop coastal erosion risk management plans.
A report jointly commissioned by my Department and the Department for Infrastructure in 2018 highlighted severe data deficiencies and recommended as a priority:
"the generation of a coastal erosion baseline from which other decisions can be made".
Through partnership working, major milestones have been achieved in baseline data collection, and the Northern Ireland Coastal Observatory greatly enhances data availability. My Department has made a significant contribution to the evidence gathering through its coastal monitoring programmes. It has now mapped the entirety of Northern Ireland's coast and nearshore areas. As a result of the Coastal Forum, Northern Ireland is in a much stronger position to develop future policy and legislation for coastal management. The Coastal Forum will meet again on 18 November, when it will consider recommendations for a new work programme for 2026 to 2031. That will include preparing a paper for the Executive to consider on how to respond to the Climate Change Committee's recommendation that the Executive designate to a Department responsibility for overseeing coastal management and bringing forward policy and legislation on managing coastal change. We hope to bring the paper to the Executive by the end of November, and I urge my Executive colleagues to urgently consider it, because the matter is an important one that we need to progress.

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

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