Debate contribution: Independent Environmental Protection Agency

Debate contribution by Miss Michelle McIlveen on 10 March 2026.

MLA

Miss Michelle McIlveen

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

10 March 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Independent Environmental Protection Agency

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5437076

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Alliance Party talks a lot about openness and transparency, but, whenever it comes under scrutiny from other politicians or, indeed, from journalists, it distracts, deflects and insults in order to avoid dealing with the hard questions. That is the opposite of openness and transparency. It is simply gaslighting of the public. The attempted establishment of yet another quango in Northern Ireland is another way of placing accountability elsewhere, which seems to be one of the Alliance Party's favourite pastimes. From looking at the Alliance Justice Minister's responses to questions for written answer, one might wonder whether the Department of Justice is responsible for anything. It seems that the Alliance Party wants to use that as the blueprint for its other Department. Passing powers to an independent agency is yet another attempt by the Alliance Party to absolve itself of any responsibility or accountability for the failure of the Departments under its control. An independent environmental protection agency will not clean up Lough Neagh or improve the quality of one drop of water. What it will do is afford the Minister scope to say that it should do better rather than accepting that it is he who should do better. The Alliance Party's agitation for an independent environmental protection agency is a distraction to deflect from DAERA's, and, by extension, the Minister's, failures. As I said in the Chamber in November:

"We already have the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) and the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP), which exist to safeguard our natural environment, enforce regulations and hold Departments to account. Their collective failure to do so rests at the Minister's feet and that is his responsibility. We are not short on oversight, but we are short of results. " — [Official Report (Hansard), 10 November 2025, p77, col 1].

There are around 120 arm's-length bodies (ALBs) in Northern Ireland, excluding those such as the NIEA that are Executive agencies in Departments. There are around 80 non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs), advisory bodies, tribunals, boards and cross-border bodies. That is an awful lot of government that is not part of government. In the motion, the Alliance Party refers to things being "undemocratic". Arm's-length bodies are the definition of undemocratic, yet the Alliance Party is asking for the establishment of an undemocratic body, with accountability being pushed away from democratically elected MLAs to an appointed board. When the Minister made his statement to the Assembly on the independent review of environmental governance, I asked:

"If the Department cannot adequately fund what is currently in place, how can we expect a new, additional organisation to be properly funded to carry out its functions?" — [Official Report (Hansard), 4 November 2025, p10, col 2].

It appears that the answer is the magic money tree. If the money has not been available to fund adequately the bodies that the Minister has currently, it will not be available to fund this new body, unless it is taken from somewhere else. If we add the additional layers of governance required to operate an NDPB, it will only cost the public purse more, which means that somewhere else will suffer.

I asked what safeguards have been suggested to prevent the mission creep that has been seen with other independent bodies that were established through statute. I gave the valid example of the Equality Commission in the Ashers case. It was reasonable to highlight the actions of a publicly funded body that cost the public purse £250,000, an amount that could have been more if Ashers had pursued its costs. However, the Alliance Party's deputy leader saw fit to accuse me of engaging in a homophobic dog whistle. That was distraction, deflection and insult.

Getting to the point, again, it was distraction, deflection and insult. It seems that the Alliance Party prefers no openness, no transparency and, certainly, no accountability.

No, I will not. Add to that the fact that the Alliance Party is, once again, showing its disdain for the cross-community protections that are provided under the Belfast Agreement and St Andrews Agreement. It wants them discarded, simply because it is not getting its way. Instead of working within the perfectly legal framework that exists, the Alliance Party wants to run to the Secretary of State to attempt to override it. So much for minority protections. At a time when the public purse is stretched, I am yet to hear a cogent argument for why I should support spending further money on an unaccountable quango, simply to cover the Minister's blushes. I am yet to hear a reason why I should support the establishment of another body and risk the squandering of public resources when it overreaches and is unanswerable for that overreach. I am yet to be convinced that the existing oversight mechanisms could not do their job properly if they were properly funded and supported by their sponsor Department. I am also yet to be convinced on why we should expect the situation to be any different with the new body that we are being asked to establish —.

I will not be supporting the motion.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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