Stormont’s agriculture and environment minister has criticised a major executive strategy that saw his predecessors spend up to £400m of public money on intensifying agricultural output.
Andrew Muir said Going for Growth, widely cited recently in the decline of Lough Neagh’s rapidly deteriorating water quality, was a “mistake”.
The strategy, jointly sponsored by the then agriculture minister Michelle O’Neill and her economy counterpart Arlene Foster, was launched at the Balmoral Show in 2014.
In their foreword to the strategy, which was overseen by former Moy Park chief executive Tony O’Neill, the minsters said that despite a “very challenging fiscal environment” they would support the agri-food sector in “realising its ambitions and maximising its potential”.
The strategy, which these days is rarely mentioned by Stormont politicians, promised to create 15,000 new jobs.
Its implementation has coincided with the widespread deterioration of water quality across the north, largely as a result of run-off from slurry spreading.
Speaking yesterday at Lough Neagh, five days after his 37-point plan to rehabilitate Ireland’s largest fresh water lake was signed off by the executive, Mr Muir lamented Stormont’s support for policies that he claimed had shown little regard for the environment.
“I really wish that we had been more aware of the damage we were doing to our environment many years ago,” he said.
“Maybe that’s the case for an independent environmental protection agency – we need to have people here prepared to put their the head above the parapet and call out what’s going wrong.
“I will say here today that when we look back at some of the decisions that we made here in Northern Ireland, Going for Growth, for example, that was mistake.”
The minister said he wanted to “learn lessons around what we did in the past”.
Friends of the Earth director James Orr said Mr Muir’s remarks were the “first time a Stormont minister has acknowledged the damage Going for Growth has wreaked upon our environment”.
“Coupled with other key decisions, most notably the vetoing of an independent environmental protection agency in 2007, it enabled the trashing of our landscape and waterways,” he said.
“The sick state of Lough Neagh and the vast majority of our other water bodies is a testament to the short-sightedness of our policy makers, who it seems have yet to fully realise the folly of their ways.”
Mr Orr said declining air and water quality meant it was “essential” that Stormont supported an independent environmental protection agency.
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said: “There are a range of challenges contributing to the environmental crisis at Lough Neagh.
“The challenge for all of us, and particularly the Daera minister, is to focus on finding solutions to the problems.”
