Part of Question for Urgent Oral Answer — Infrastructure – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 3:30 pm on 16 September 2024.
John O'Dowd
Sinn Féin
3:30,
16 September 2024
Any investment strategy has to include an investment strategy for NI Water. It will not work without NI Water having access to the resources that it requires or that can be delivered during an investment strategy period. Those discussions are ongoing.
In fairness to my Executive colleagues and the main players in the debate, everyone recognises that NI Water needs more resources, but it is competing against Health, Education and all those things. We have to work together to map out a way forward. As I said in response to a number of questions today, there is a three-pronged strategy: having more direct investment in NI Water, seeing what new legislation on developer contributions might look like, and working with nature through programmes and the provisions in the SuDS Bill.