Debate contribution: NI Water Challenges

Debate contribution by Mr Peter McReynolds on 8 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Peter McReynolds

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

8 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

NI Water Challenges

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4481648

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I welcome the opportunity to speak to today's motion. I thank the proposer of the motion for stepping in at short notice to move it, and I thank the proposer of the amendment for bringing it forward for debate. Since the restoration of the Assembly and the Executive, I have been fortunate to speak in multiple infrastructure debates, all of which noted the requirement for long-term, strategic and significant investment to deliver in a variety of ways for the population who live here. Today's debate is no different in that it is about facilitating clean and safe drinking water and sewerage for the 1·9 million people who live here and over 700,000 households and businesses. Those are fundamental human rights, but they also require significant financial cost and political will to deliver them. It is essential that we achieve that in a manner that is safe and accessible and does not discriminate against the most vulnerable in our society. I am personally passionate about the issue, having studied the human right to water during my human rights law master's degree. It was then that I had my first visit to this place to meet multiple MLAs and hear a wide range of views on how they wanted to finance and work with Northern Ireland Water. I was reflecting on that over the weekend, and the conversations that I had over a decade ago are the same conversations that we are having today. We are talking about a Victorian sewerage network in desperate need of upgrade, significant funding pressures due to a historically fragmented and underfunded approach to water infrastructure and how the inconsistent political stability of these institutions exacerbates those problems. As we have heard, at the Infrastructure Committee we were fortunate enough to have the chief executive of Northern Ireland Water, Sara Venning, at our first meeting, which shows the importance that we place on the prioritisation of Northern Ireland Water during the mandate. She painted a bleak picture of the pressures facing the organisation. I welcome this motion on the current funding and governance models, which need to be reviewed, as my colleague Mr Brown detailed. However, I caution the Chamber that there is no single swift answer for remedying the various issues that face Northern Ireland Water; instead, like infrastructure and construction, it will require consistent, stable and functioning institutions supporting the organisation year in, year out, not a frequently collapsed Executive or a Department without a Minister. We were meant to have multi-annual Budgets, but we have missed out on those. Multi-annual Budgets would have better served the long-term assets needed to deliver and manage water and would have given confidence to the construction, civil engineering, housing and business sectors, as they would see certainty in the future, rather than the unfortunate dysfunction of recent years and the year-by-year funding fluctuations. It is important to highlight climate change and the fundamental role that our environment plays in addressing water quality. In 2023, we had our warmest year on record and our wettest since 2002. Alongside that, the degradation of our water treatment system is having an impact on our environment, with our combined sewer overflows directly linked to pollution incidents. In a climate emergency, that must change as we adapt to having to manage more water. As we heard, England is seeing similar and worse on a regular basis. I am proud to be in a party that has vocally ruled out going down the privatisation route for delivering and managing water. That has proven time and time again to be a disaster on a global basis. Water must be recognised as a right to life, rather than being seen solely through a economic lens. That is why it is so important that we start treating our water and infrastructure sectors with the respect and attention that they deserve. Lastly and against that backdrop, I encourage the Minister to explore the potential of nature-based solutions to reduce cost pressures by improving water quality at source and mitigating flood risk. For example, extensive research has demonstrated the ability of trees to protect water bodies when they are planted close to pollution sources. Whilst I appreciate that Northern Ireland Water is working to install natural solutions where possible, it is vital that we work with the environment on a larger scale, and I would appreciate the Minister's commitment on that point. We support today's motion and amendment. We are always happy to look at expert-led options and make evidence-based decisions. However, that must always have at its core political consistency and stability, the protection of our environment and, fundamentally, a rejection of privatisation and of placing increased financial burdens on the public. From here, our ability to build much-needed homes, our economy and, ultimately, Northern Ireland will benefit.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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