North/South Ministerial Council: Environment

Part of Ministerial Statements – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 11:30 am on 25 June 2024.

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Photo of Andrew Muir Andrew Muir Alliance 11:30, 25 June 2024

I thank the Member for her question. The issue of bathing water quality is close to my heart because it has been raised by constituents in North Down. Down South, there have been initiatives that target areas with poor water quality in order to turn it around. One of those, the ASSAP initiative (agricultural sustainability support and advisory programme) — I apologise for the acronym — involves one-to-one engagement with the agriculture community. That was one of the discussions in the meeting. There would be real benefits to expanding a similar scheme of one-to-one engagement led by the Rivers Trust in the upper Bann catchment area to other areas of Northern Ireland. I need funding to do that. I will engage with the Finance Minister on that, because one key way we can improve bathing water quality is by engaging with people.

Can I be clear about this, folks? My heart and soul are in education and incentivisation. It is much better that the problem does not occur in the first place and that we do not have to resort to enforcement. That is not where I want to go, OK? It is really important that I put this on the record: the overwhelming majority of farmers are good custodians of the countryside -— they are fantastic custodians of the countryside, and we would be lost without them -— but, if people are breaking the law, it is important that we take enforcement action. That is why I am talking about a balanced approach, but I really want to engage one-to-one with people and bring people with us. That is where my focus is on the issue.

The other aspect of bathing water quality is waste water infrastructure. Ultimately, I will stand here as Minister and make a bid for funding for another Department: John O'Dowd and the Department for Infrastructure need more funding for waste water infrastructure so that we can invest in that infrastructure to improve water quality. I will stand with John at every opportunity to make that case, because that is how we will turn the situation around. That is where, I genuinely believe, we can work together to turn this around. I have seen what has happened in the South. I will go down South and see some of their initiatives and what they are doing, because, with practical interventions and by working together, we can turn the situation around, give people a bit of hope and move on from a blame game to solutions.