Debate contribution: NI Water: Funding and Governance

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 29 April 2025.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

29 April 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Opposition Business

Heading

NI Water: Funding and Governance

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4922276

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I was not planning on speaking on the motion, but I thought that Members of the Assembly had not heard enough from me today and were perhaps hoping fondly to hear more from the leader of the Opposition. Part of the purpose of my speaking today is to reinforce some of what my colleague Patsy McGlone said. Patsy outlined some serious allegations and information and put those on the record in the Assembly today. I will add to that and to what he said about the seriousness of our overall motion. Today's motions are about accountability and about forcing the Executive not just to be clear about what they say that they want to do or their vague aspirations but to provide detailed plans for improving people's lives and public services. There is widespread consensus, if not unanimity — I will come on to that; there may not be perfect unanimity — that Northern Ireland Water is not funded adequately and has had historical underinvestment and that our water infrastructure is failing us. That failure has been well rehearsed today. Lough Neagh is, sadly and tragically, becoming an almost sci-fi-like vision of failure. What has happened at Lough Neagh is probably one of the most horrific ecological breakdowns in Europe. Although the issues at Northern Ireland Water are certainly not the only or the majority reason for that, they have contributed seriously to what has happened there, and they are contributing to what is happening at Belfast lough and other watercourses. There has been a long-run failure to invest and a failure by us to properly make progress on economic development. Members have all talked about the barriers to investment. I can talk about that in my constituency. I am sure that every MLA can talk not just about water issues in the building of new social homes but about small, additional issues for businesses. I will give an example, but I will not go into specific details. A cafe operating in my constituency employs people and is a well-liked community business and, if you like, asset, but it is having issues with NI Water permissions. It is a small cafe that serves sandwiches and drinks. That example will be replicated across the North. We cannot allow a situation to endure where we cannot meaningfully build social homes and where small businesses, let alone factories and warehouses, cannot expand.

Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague. What we have had so far is a way of, frankly, parking the question for now. I am afraid that that is what we have had lots of from successive Infrastructure Ministers, who have deflected attention away from the question about the failure to invest in our waste water infrastructure. We have had partial answers, and we have been told, "We'll do something on developer contributions", despite the fact that there are challenges around developer contributions and that they could cause an issue by slowing down the pipeline of homes. Even if you did developer contributions, as my colleague Patsy McGlone has just said, there is no real evidence that they would deliver anywhere near the quantum of funding change that is needed. There is a consultation happening, we are told; perhaps the Minister will say more about that now. There is no sign, however, that we will get this implemented or delivered within anything like a meaningful timescale. It seems very much like the phrase "developer contributions" has been picked from the air in order to have something to say. The other thing that is often said — there is a real problem with the repetition of this argument — is that we do not want water charges. My party does not want water charges. That is not an answer to the question. You cannot simply say — I am happy to take an intervention from the Minister, or perhaps she will reflect on that in her remarks. I am happy to give way. I do not want water charges, but there are multiple other options for funding NI Water. The mutualisation model is one option. One mutualisation model might mean water charges, but I am not advocating that. There are other ways of doing mutualisation. Another model might be that the Executive say, "Over the long run, we will give NI Water the first call on the conventional capital budget. We do not want to go anywhere near mutualisation. We do not want to change classification. We do not want to worry about the Office for National Statistics. We just want" — perhaps officials have looked at this —"to give NI Water the first call on the capital departmental expenditure limit allocations". They have not said that they will do that. The former Infrastructure Minister is now the Finance Minister, and I have not heard that suggestion from him, but that is the upshot: if Sinn Féin Ministers want to do that, they should tell us. Another option would be to look for a new borrowing power that would not involve any kind of mutualisation and certainly not privatisation. The Executive would, perhaps, simply do some kind of new borrowing, such as a new bond, to fund water infrastructure. That would still have to be paid for, probably, again, out of Executive repayments. I am not necessarily advocating any of those options — I see the officials shaking their heads — but we need something. We have a crisis. Five years ago, 'New Decade, New Approach' (NDNA) promised that there would be urgent investment in waste water infrastructure. We are five years on, and we have not seen the urgent investment in NI Water. It is therefore legitimate for us, as an Opposition, to ask what is happening. What is happening with our waste water infrastructure? Lough Neagh is an ecological catastrophe. Nowhere near the number of new homes that we expected to see are being built. A couple of years ago, a Sinn Féin Communities Minister said that hundreds of thousands of new homes would be built in the next decade and a half. They will not — not with our current waste water infrastructure. All those problems are mounting up. All that we ask for is clarity, a review to produce options —

— and the Executive finally to deliver on them.

1,053 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:28 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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