Debate contribution: Lough Erne: Pollution

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew McMurray on 17 September 2024.

MLA

Mr Andrew McMurray

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

17 September 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Adjournment

Heading

Lough Erne: Pollution

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4537489

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank Mrs Erskine for securing the Adjournment debate. It is an important issue, which is affecting Lough Erne and many other waterbodies around Northern Ireland. I welcome the debate and associate myself with some of the comments made by Members about the seriousness of the pollution affecting our freshwater bodies and marine waters. As an outdoor instructor in a previous life, I carried the issue of water quality close to my heart. I have spent many a happy hour enjoying myself on our beautiful rivers and lakes and along our coastline, but, sadly, those places are now becoming increasingly off limits to the public on account of public health concerns. In preparation for my speech in the Adjournment debate, I consulted individuals involved in outdoor recreation in the Lough Erne area. I wish to speak on behalf of that community. While the local outdoor community is well aware of the issues, it wants to work with agencies to monitor and remedy the situation. I know the amount of recreational and commercial reliance that there is on Lough Erne. It is a most beautiful and scenic part of the world. We must ensure that its ecological and environmental needs are maintained to the utmost standards, not just for our gratification but for the wildlife whose habitat is Lough Erne. The issue of water quality affects many areas across Northern Ireland. I hear about it in my constituency work in South Down. Recently, we heard about the water pollution that is affecting bathing waters in Newcastle and other parts of Northern Ireland. The same week, part of the Mourne Sprint Triathlon had to be cancelled after blue-green algae were found in Castlewellan lake. It is a serious issue that is affecting our environment, our economy and the everyday lives of all of us who live in Northern Ireland. We cannot be complacent. We need to do everything in our power to turn the situation around. Large bodies of water such as Lough Erne do not exist in isolation. They are fed by a network of streams and rivers. While algal blooms, on occasion, will happen in natural circumstances, their increasing frequency and intensity and the length of the blooms can be linked to our influence on the streams and rivers. It is, in part, about our creaking waste water system, which cannot cope with demand and ends up spurting untreated sewage into our waterbodies. Recently, we learned that, in 2023, Northern Ireland Water monitored 80 pipes that, taken together, discharged into coastal bathing waters for more hours than there are in a year. There are over 2,400 storm overflows across Northern Ireland, most of them unmonitored. The situation is therefore likely worse. I think that Mrs Erskine and I were comparing notes. Sewage discharge is also a major cause of the pollution that we now see in Lough Erne. Indeed, I heard reports of 250,000 tons of raw sewage being discharged into the lough. It is clear that our infrastructure cannot cope with the demands placed on it. We urgently need a long-term funding model for Northern Ireland Water. Industry also has a big role to play. Simply put, too many nutrients are being washed into our waterbodies, creating prime conditions for algae to thrive. That looming crisis has been known about for decades if not centuries. Algal blooms were recorded in Lough Neagh as far back as 1910. Blue-green algae became a significant problem there and in other Northern Irish lakes in the 1960s. The Government of the time funded investigations of the causes and possible solutions, yet here we are again. I welcome DAERA's recent change of direction towards sustainable farming. I know that water pollution is a priority for the Minister. I welcome his ambition to tackle the problem. It was good to see an ambitious programme of actions laid out in the Lough Neagh action plan earlier this year. Many of those actions will benefit waterbodies across Northern Ireland. It has also been good to see the Minister accept the findings of the recent report by the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) and his willingness to tackle the issues raised in it. The Executive will need to support the Minister in his important work. That support must include adequate funding to enable DAERA to incentivise changes in the agriculture sector and to facilitate effective regulation, testing and reporting. The issue is not solely down to one polluter, one agency, one Department or, indeed, one quick action to sort out. It has developed over time from different sources and will require time to recover. Achieving that will require Departments to work together for the benefit of Lough Erne and other waterbodies across Northern Ireland.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:12 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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