Debate contribution: Lough Neagh

Debate contribution by Mr Declan Kearney on 9 September 2025.

MLA

Mr Declan Kearney

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

9 September 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Lough Neagh

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5086657

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Throughout this summer, the catastrophic pollution consuming Lough Neagh has become even more extreme, but it did not start this summer. The biodiversity and ecological well-being of our lough now faces a sustained existential threat, the like of which we have never seen. So too do the commercial fishing industry, the tourism offering around the lough shore, the historical heritage and all associated with Lough Neagh. Our commercial fishermen, and those of us who work with them and who know the lough shore, have predicted, since 2023, that this pollution would continue to worsen. That is what has happened. The total termination of eel fishing for the 2025 season graphically illustrates how this deepening crisis has devastated livelihoods and economic activity right around the lough shore and into the adjoining waterways. Following the termination of eel fishing in 2025, I wrote to the AERA Minister calling on him to introduce a financial assistance scheme for Lough Neagh eel fishermen. I appeal again to the Minister and the Department to consider the necessity of a support package for our commercial fishermen. They have been left without income since May, and many of them face unemployment, debt and financial ruin. The repercussions for local fishermen, their families, eel exports and the wider lough shore community are frankly incalculable. As we work to address the ecological catastrophe in Lough Neagh, immediate supports are needed to secure that critical tradition of commercial fishing and the livelihoods of all those who depend upon it. The intensified pollution of this year needs to be met with decisive, coordinated action involving all the relevant stakeholders, including the Fishermen's Co-operative and the Lough Neagh Partnership. I know that the Minister is directly engaged with both. Sometimes, there are issues in politics, and in this place, that are so critical that they demand consensus.

Today, in this debate, the current crisis in Lough Neagh needs to be elevated above party politics. There has been too much point-scoring over recent months, none of which will resolve the crisis in the lough and none of which will redeem the fortunes of fishermen, their families and everyone who lives around the lough shore. We need political agreement, not divergence, in our collective efforts, as an Executive and throughout the Assembly, to address this unprecedented ecological emergency.

Lough Neagh is no longer a regional crisis; it is far beyond that. It is a national emergency that demands a joint political priority from the Assembly and the Irish Government. Our response to the scale of the crisis in the lough requires North/South governmental action with a dedicated focus from the British and Irish Governments. That should be an agreed position from our Assembly and Executive and, I hope, flowing from the debate today.

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

Assessment

Not qualifying

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:05 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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