Andrew Muir says he wants a “reset” in terms of the balance in his department’s oversight of the region’s agriculture sector and the environment.
The first Alliance Party minister in the Northern Ireland Executive – outside overseeing of the Department of Justice – since Stephen Farry last held the employment and learning portfolio in 2016, the 48-year-old MLA for North Down is also the devolved government’s first openly gay member.
He rejects the notion of an unresolvable tension at the heart of his department, which for the past eight years has included agriculture and environment, two sectors with often conflicting interests.
“I hear the debate about two separate departments but don’t agree, because that’s a recipe for dodging difficult decisions.
“I think it’s important that both areas are within one department and I’m working to serve the farming community but also doing that in a sustainable manner which respects the environment.”
He says he brings “no baggage” to the role and is “not in the pockets of anyone”.
Only last week, Mr Muir put clear blue water between himself and what has come before by describing Stormont’s £400m Going for Growth farm intensification strategy as a “mistake”.
He says the suite of policies adopted by the executive over the past decade have created “real pressures in terms of their environmental impact on water and air quality, particularly in relation to ammonia emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions”.
“We’re turning a different way under my leadership,” he says.
Rather than focusing on the past and “finger-pointing”, the minister wants to “focus upon how we’re actually going to turn the situation around”.
Rehabilitating Ireland’s largest fresh water lake is the most visible and immediate challenge facing the minister, who earlier this month secured executive approval for his cross-cutting plan. Notably, none of his executive colleagues has given the proposals a public endorsement.
“Maybe they wanted to give me a bit of limelight?” the minister laughs, when asked about the conspicuous absence of support for what is said to be one of the administration’s priorities.
He says it’s a case of “time will tell” in terms of the lough’s recovery. The “substantial” actions will require funding, which along with political support, is essential to their success, he says.
The minister says his department is “scoping” the as yet unspecified costs and that he’ll continue to engage with Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald, and “in due course”, with the British government, alongside the finance minister.
A number of factors have conspired to create swathes of toxic algae across Lough Neagh but the primary source of pollution is farm slurry, which is disposed of by spreading it on the land as fertiliser – yet most of the nutrients run-off and adversely affect water quality.
Asked if he envisages a substantial curbing of slurry spreading in the Lough Neagh catchment – an area covering more than a third of the north – the minister is non-committal but says whatever happens must be done “at pace”.
“We have a problem with slurry manure in that we have too much of it in Northern Ireland, we find need to find a better way to deal with it,” he says.
“There’s initiatives that my department has taken forward, which is essentially moving it from something viewed as waste to be spread, resulting in access phosphorus, to a resource to be processed”.
He also argues that “significant investment” in wastewater infrastructure is necessary if the plan to rehabilitate Lough Neagh is to succeed.
The minister says failure to spend money on sewage treatment has led to pollution incidents right across the north and that he is “surprised there hasn’t been as much outrage”.
He also plans to revise the framework for regulation of the regional water and sewerage industry, describing what’s currently in place as “not fit for purpose”.
Last week, The Irish News revealed that up to 37,000 properties in pre-planning are at risk of not being built due to a lack of investment in water and sewerage infrastructure.
Mr Muir says the executive “hasn’t had a great reputation in terms of taking difficult decisions” but that the current crisis at Lough Neagh means there is “no time to dither and delay”.
The Alliance minister believes current levels of investment in NI Water are not sustainable.
His party advocates mutualising NI Water to allow it to borrow to invest in much-needed infrastructure. However, Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd has ruled out both mutualisation and the introduction of domestic water charges.
Mr Muir says he supports his executive colleague’s calls for additional capital investment
“Getting the Lough Neagh report agreed was important and that was through a process of providing clarifications to executive colleagues, but the hard work starts now.
“In terms of the actions that are required, we need to do significant investment in wastewater infrastructure, as it is at the root of around 24% of the problem, and the current projections in terms of investment are not sufficient to deal with that issue.”
NI Water said £2.7bn is necessary to “start to address the historic underinvestment in wastewater infrastructure and to achieve the current consent standards”.
A statement from Department for Infrastructure said NI Water’s needs were identified by the Utility Regulator through a price control process on a six yearly cycle.
It identified £85m of projects in the vicinity of Lough Neagh that are “due to progress” and a further £46m of projects from 2027 onwards.
The action plan also includes a scientific review of the sand dredging, an industrial-scale practice that was unregulated until recently.
The minister insists that if the review finds dredging the bed of lough is detrimental to the environment, he’ll “not be found wanting in terms of them making recommendations for action associated with that”.
Mr Muir is also determined to ensure there’s an independent environmental protection agency in place to support the work around water quality rehabilitation and also sign-off Stormont’s first environmental improvement plan, which is now a year overdue.
