Stormont minister Andrew Muir has been urged to “get on with the job” of creating an independent environmental protection agency.
The call from a coalition of environmental and conservation groups that includes National Trust, Friends of the Earth, RSPB and Christian Aid, comes after the Alliance minister last week announced that a panel of “independent experts” would begin a review environmental governance in the new year.
The Climate and Environment Coalition Northern Ireland (CECNI) said there had been “multiple reviews, reports, and recommendations about environmental governance” and that the minister was “just kicking the can down the road”.
The review panel will be chaired by Dr Viviane Gravey, a senior lecturer Queen’s University, alongside Diane Ruddock, who worked for the National Trust for more than three decades, and former MLA John McCallister, who works for the Young Farmers Clubs of Ulster and is a member of the Ulster Farmers’ Union.
The agriculture and environment minister said the panel’s review “may include proposals to establish an independent environmental protection agency, including the potential shape, policy and legal responsibility of such an organisation”.
The creation of an independent environmental watchdog was a commitment in 2020′s New Decade New Approach deal and would bring the north into line with other jurisdictions in Ireland and Britain.
In the assembly on Monday, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly declined to give assurances that the DUP would not veto the creation of an independent environmental protection agency, while the Northern Ireland Executive’s draft programme for government includes no reference to environmental protection.
Ms Little-Pengelly said her party would “take a look” at the review panel’s report when published but added that the example in other jurisdictions demonstrated that an independent environmental watchdog is not a “silver bullet”.
CECNI chair Declan Allison said the minister needed to act to “fix our failing environmental protection systems”.
“How much worse does our water quality need to be? How many more protected sites must be trashed? How more times does Lough Neagh have to be choked with toxic algae before the Minster says enough is enough?” he said.
Mr Allison said the north’s current environmental protection body, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), was “fully controlled” by Mr Muir’s department.
“As such, it has been, and continues to be, subject to political interference and the changing priorities of whichever party holds the Daera portfolio,” he said.
“For example, the Memorandum of Understanding with the Ulster Farmers’ Union, introduced in 2017 by minister {Edwin} Poots, deprioritises prosecution of pollution incidents – since it was introduced, water pollution incidents have increased while prosecutions have decreased.”
Opposition leader Matthew O’Toole of the SDLP accused Mr Muir of a “backtrack from his party’s clear manifesto commitment” and said Ms Little-Pengelly’s refusal to commit to an independent environmental watchdog was a “shocking indication of executive inaction on the environment”.
“One would have thought that after two of the most shocking environmental events in Europe, the illegal waste dump at Mobouy and the crisis at Lough Neagh, the executive would have gotten serious about their environmental responsibilities – clearly not,” he said.
