Debate contribution: Lough Neagh Rescue Plan

Debate contribution by Mr Peter McReynolds on 13 February 2024.

MLA

Mr Peter McReynolds

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

13 February 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Lough Neagh Rescue Plan

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4206439

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Following yesterday's important motions on childcare and planning reform and today's debate on a women's health strategy, it is good to see that the crisis at Lough Neagh is also high on the agenda of the Assembly. I thank Mr McGuigan for tabling the motion. I echo many of the sentiments articulated by Members, with the rescue and protection of the lough being essential for public health, a thriving economy and wider society. I quickly learned from my colleague Ms Armstrong yesterday that, as I am speaking after my colleagues, I will try not to repeat the previously mentioned arguments. In my experience, I was fortunate to be able to attend some of the cross-departmental briefings last year as the crisis emerged and MLAs heard what could and would need to be done to address what quickly became a global news story. A number of charities and environmental groups were crucial in highlighting what was happening — the problems facing the lough — with Friends of the Earth hosting a cross-party round-table discussion in the MAC in Belfast city centre. Groups such as the Lough Neagh Partnership, RSPB, Northern Ireland Environment Link and Ulster Wildlife played crucial roles in capturing the mood of the population as pictures and videos became more frequent on our screens. I thank them for acting as swiftly and as passionately as they did. I take this opportunity to remind Members that repeated patterns of algae blooms were found in several locations across Northern Ireland. That is consistent with the assessment that, unfortunately, none of our waterways is considered to be in good health. Significant declines have also been reported in the quality of rivers, lakes and coastal waters here in Northern Ireland.

Contamination does not just occur from agricultural run-off, as we have heard. As my colleague Mr Blair advised in his opening remarks, 24% of contamination is due to untreated sewage effluent, which regularly overflows into our watercourses. Our rapidly changing climate is also seeing increased frequencies of extreme rainfall, which forces that raw untreated sewage into watercourses via combined sewer overflow pipes. We cannot fully safeguard strategic environmental assets such as Lough Neagh with a waste water system that has barely been updated since it was built. We are at a crisis point with waste water and sewage infrastructure in Northern Ireland. In over 100 areas across the region, waste water infrastructure capacity is either full or near full. Those capacity challenges, coupled with chronic underinvestment, are contributing to environmentally damaging overspills. Unfortunately, our struggling waste water infrastructure ensures that sewer flooding and pollution into water courses is a regular occurrence. The regrettable and unintended consequence of historically not investing enough in enhancing this vital infrastructure is that it leads to our polluted rivers and harms biodiversity. The intensification of demand on a struggling system has exacerbated inadequate environmental protections because the infrastructure was not built to separate rainwater run-off and sewage at source. Part of the solution to protect Lough Neagh, as well as every other water course in Northern Ireland, is to make sure that Northern Ireland Water is able to contribute towards ensuring the long-term health of our waterways. Lastly, and touching on the remarks from the Member who spoke prior to me, on one of my recent rare journeys outside East Belfast, I was fortunate to be shown the sheer scale of the operation to deliver safe, clean drinking water at a water treatment plant just outside Carrickfergus. I encourage Members to call out and engage with the water treatment plants near them and see how that is done for themselves. I am delighted that this motion has appeared so early for debate in the Chamber. I support the motion and, of course, the amendment. I look forward to working towards the rescue and improvement of Lough Neagh on a cross-departmental basis.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:35 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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