Debate contribution: Direct Payments to Farmers (Cross-Compliance) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024: Prayer of Annulment
Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on .
- MLA
- Mr Gerry Carroll
- Party at the time
- People Before Profit Alliance
- Date
- 4 February 2025
- Type
- Debate contribution
- Business
- Committee Business
- Heading
- Direct Payments to Farmers (Cross-Compliance) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024: Prayer of Annulment
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4779185
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Quite often, with regard to climate issues or the environment, I am critical of the Minister and the Executive for not acting swiftly enough or for having the strategy of trying to merge the interests of agri-food businesses with those of environmentalists. Quite often, with that strategy, the latter and the environment will lose out, and that is without mentioning the disastrous Lough Neagh response. Having said that, the fact that MLAs want to reduce fines on polluters is absolutely mind-boggling. I do not understand that. If you litter in the street, you are obviously fined for littering, but going by what they are saying today, some Members want to whitewash, excuse and allow people to get away with pollution. It is bizarre that Members talk about protecting and supporting farmers. I suggest that, at times, they are more interested in protecting industrial farming and corporations, such as Moy Park. They get industrial derating, which is a corporate handout from the Department of Finance through the rates system.
Yes, go ahead.
Thank you for the clarity. There have been a couple of long interventions.
Yes. Sorry, say that again. Interventions are meant to be short, and neither was short.
The wider point about Moy Park is that there is still a cosy relationship with it. If it did not correspond with the Committee, that is fair enough. That question was worthy of asking, because there is a consensus that there is a hands-off approach to Moy Park. The industrial derating scheme is one example of many. Members have said that they are against penalties for farmers and, basically, against fining farmers and the Minister's current position. Implicitly, they are essentially saying that all farmers are polluters, which I do not believe that they are. If they do not support the Minister's position but choose to go for the prayer of annulment, they are basically saying that most farmers are polluters and that many of them will be fined. Therefore, they cannot back that position.
I am not a member of the Committee. Enforcement is an element of the SR, and I assume that a lack of an independent EPA is part of that, which, if I am right, the Member's party is also opposed to. I will just repeat the point that I previously made. If you are saying that you are against repeated polluters being fined, essentially, you are saying that you think that most farmers are guilty of pollution.
I have given way and have been quite flexible, so I would rather not, thanks. The real polluters are corporate farmers, dumping sewage and waste into the likes of Lough Neagh and elsewhere. I do not believe that small farmers are to blame. The Minister can speak for himself in response to what the Member for Upper Bann said about his party being anti-farmer. There is an incorrect attempt to pit the interests of small farmers, many of whom are living in poverty, against the interests of big, industrial farmers. That attempt was what some of the protests in the past few weeks here and in Britain were about: you cannot say that big, industrial farmers have the same interests as small farmers when they absolutely do not. I am against the prayer of annulment. Some of the issues should be addressed and added to the debate.
558 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.10 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.81).
- No identity-based framing was identified (0.93).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.13 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.07 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.15 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.08 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.81 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.10 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 0.93 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.05 |
| Adopts it | 0.02 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.93 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.03 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Sectarianism, hate crime and community relations | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:51 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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