Debate contribution: Asian Hornets

Debate contribution by Mr Andrew Muir on 20 October 2025.

MLA

Mr Andrew Muir

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

20 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Questions for Urgent Oral Answer

Heading

Asian Hornets

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5188872

Read the official Assembly record

Text

A report from a member of the public of an Asian hornet in the Dundonald area of Belfast led to the location of a nest by Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) officials. The nest was treated and successfully removed on Saturday 18 October. The nest has been delivered to the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) for analysis to determine what stage the hornets were at in their breeding cycle. Genetic analysis to obtain clues as to their origin is also being scoped. NIEA is continuing its monitoring and trapping programme in the Dundonald area to ensure that there are no further nests. There will be some residual activity from hornets that were not in the nest when it was treated. That is normal. Those hornets will either be trapped or will die off. I urge the public and beekeepers to remain vigilant and report any suspect insects, ideally with a photograph, to DAERA via the Asian Hornet Watch app or the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR) online recording.

Officials engaged with the Ulster Beekeepers' Association upon the first sighting of an Asian hornet. They will meet the association again tomorrow. As Minister, I will seek to engage with the association on the issue as well. The main thing for us to do is to raise awareness and encourage people to report sightings. Through the vigilance of members of the public, we have been able to track the Asian hornets, locate where the nest was and treat it. I thank people for reporting it, and ask people to continue doing that.

We are working through the situation and will seek to absorb the cost within the budget in year. The budget is extremely tight. My Department is also dealing with avian influenza, which puts a budget pressure on us. As the situation develops, we will look at how we support the beekeeping industry in Northern Ireland and continue that engagement. The most effective way in which to deal with the situation immediately is for people to be aware of it and to report any sightings of Asian hornets to the Department so that we can track them. The vigilance of members of the public allowed us to locate the nest. I thank the officials who worked very quickly to locate the site of the nest. They moved in at dusk on Friday to apply a powder before removing the nest on Saturday. It was a very quick response.

Thank you, Andy. The Shared Island initiative was key to our response, because it has allowed the sharing of expertise and knowledge about the two nests that were found previously in Cobh and Cork. An individual who is involved in the Shared Island initiative lives quite close to the site where the Asian hornets were spotted and from where the nest has been removed. That was very useful. I spoke to my ministerial counterparts at the North/South Ministerial Council meeting at the end of last week about the situation, and I thank them for the Shared Island funding and support. That shows why we need to cooperate on the issue and what the benefits of such cooperation are.

My Department is responding to recent reductions in staff available for bee inspections. Recruitment competitions are under way to increase the number of inspectors who are available to carry out a range of duties, including bee inspections.

We already have a response plan and are implementing it. We will review it in light of the situation that we have experienced and any lessons that we have learnt from it. Having shared knowledge through taking an all-Ireland approach is important. It is also important that I set out that, to date, there have been around 500 sightings of Asian hornets across the UK and Ireland, but those sightings had been in North Yorkshire and Cheshire, so the fact that sightings have occurred in Belfast and that a nest was discovered is of concern to us. It is therefore important that people report sightings to us in order to enable a prompt response. We will seek to manage the pressure in-year. It is important that we do that. As the situation unfolds, it is really important that we get on top of it and allow people to report sightings as soon as possible.

The point that I made about awareness of the matter is that dissemination of information, followed by reporting, is critical. The reason for that is that the Asian hornet is a highly effective predator of insects, including honeybees, wasps, hoverflies and other important pollinators, so it is really important that reports of sightings be made in order to allow the Northern Ireland Environment Agency to respond to them, because the Asian hornet threatens our native insect biodiversity and pollination services more widely.

Yes. That is part of the remit of the British-Irish Council, because the Asian hornet has been identified as a risk. The Channel Islands have also had sightings of the Asian hornet. That is why the nest found here is with AFBI for analysis. It is therefore important that we analyse what we have found in order to allow us to respond. The fact that the Asian hornet has been found in Belfast is unprecedented. How the first one got here is not entirely clear. There is a possibility that it could have arrived through a delivery as a stowaway, but it is really important that people report sightings. As I said, the nest was treated on Friday night and removed on Saturday, but it could be the case that, on Friday night, some hornets were not in the nest and will therefore still be in the locality, so it is important that people report any sightings to us.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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