Debate contribution: Independent Environmental Protection Agency

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 13 May 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

13 May 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

Independent Environmental Protection Agency

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4489301

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Just today, environmental campaigners gathered outside the Building to demand immediate action to tackle the environmental crisis at Lough Neagh. They gathered because the crisis is urgent, because the loss of biodiversity is rapid and catastrophic and because the poisoning of our drinking water has continued unabated since the restoration of the Assembly. Anyone who has been awake during the past three months will remember the promises that the Executive parties made about addressing the crisis at Lough Neagh. Since February, the Executive website and the media have been awash with grand statements from Ministers, who have expressed their supposed willingness to deal with that environmental disaster. Unfortunately for the rest of us, glossy PR photos of Ministers wearing waterboots by the lough shore will not fix the problems. The First Minister and the deputy First Minister promised immediate action over Lough Neagh, and the AERA Minister promised urgent action as well. After all the pledges and alleged priorities, the Executive have failed to take the most basic of steps, and a paltry £1·6 million is the sum that they have pledged to deal with a dying lough. On Thursday, the Save Lough Neagh campaign, of which I am part, met the AERA Minister to make some proposals that could save the lough, including establishing an independent EPA. I am not convinced that there is an urgent plan to save the lough. The Minister has previously spoken about needing years or decades to fix the lough. I am afraid that it does not have years or decades. It does not have the luxury of time, and neither do we. We are told that there is an environmental plan — it is probably sitting in some drawer — that will be brought before the Executive. I call for that plan to be brought forward urgently and for it to include a commitment to establishing an independent environmental protection agency. The fact that 12% of local species are being threatened with extinction and the fact that we are one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world cannot be separated from the crisis in Lough Neagh, nor can it be understood without reference to the fact that the North is the only place in these islands that does not have a separate and independent statutory nature conservation body. The reason that we need an independent environmental protection agency is simple. It is that people do not trust Stormont to hold those who are poisoning Lough Neagh and elsewhere to account, and why should they? The parties that say today that they want to protect Lough Neagh are the same parties whose poisonous policies have led to its destruction. The DUP, Sinn Féin, Alliance, the UUP and the SDLP have all played their part. The Executive's Going for Growth initiative incentivised the creation of industrial, factory-style farms, which have been spilling their poison into waterways for over a decade. A lack of infrastructure for dealing with the waste was no obstacle to parties here signing off on that plan. An independent environmental protection agency is needed to deal with the polluters, which had their fines reduced by the then DUP AERA Minister Edwin Poots. There is also a certain irony to the fact that the SDLP is taking up the case to demand an independent EPA. It was its Infrastructure Minister, Nichola Mallon, who granted licences for the destructive sand dredging that is stirring up the nutrients in Lough Neagh, choking its flora and fauna and fuelling the toxic algae growth. That said, the responsibility is on the new Executive to address the Lough Neagh crisis. They continue to let pig farmers and other industrial giants spill their poisonous dung into Lough Neagh and its tributaries. It might be said that a similar whiff of manure emanates from the Executive, given all the broken promises and excuses. The Tory Exchequer cannot be allowed to dictate whether Lough Neagh lives or dies. The Executive cannot strike a balance between our drinking water and their conservative economic agenda. Saving Lough Neagh requires urgent action and funding, and the AERA Minister should start by establishing an independent EPA that is free from ministerial interference, sufficiently funded and staffed —.

I will give way, yes.

I did not hear the Member's question. I am happy to give way again.

I could ask the Member the same question. I imagine that, at his end, it is probably zero, but I am happy to be corrected. I will continue with my points. The Minister should be sufficiently funding and staffing an independent EPA. It should have inspection and enforcement powers, be responsible for both land and sea and have the authority to bring prosecutions, where appropriate. Those are the demands. That is what the public and Lough Neagh deserve. We also deserve to take the lough back into public ownership, end commercial dredging and have a proper research and recovery plan enacted with urgent effect. Frankly, if they were left to their own devices, I do not believe that the Executive would be capable of or willing to do any of that. It will be the environmentalists, the swimmers, the fisherfolk, the surfers and the workers who take up the fight to save Lough Neagh. They will be key to protecting our environment and putting an end to the system that allows a wealthy minority to profit from its destruction. I stand with all those people every step of the way.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 10:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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