It seems Andrew Muir’s bid to improve the NI environment with a range of measures including tougher penalties for polluters is being held up by one party
DUP ministers are holding up the plan to ‘fix’ Lough Neagh as well as the environment strategy on which it’s based, I can report. The latest environment strategy to tackle pollution, air and water quality and protect nature, first crossed the Executive table in March and has still not been approved.
I have asked the ‘Democratic Unionists’ why they are holding back both plans and requested an interview with one of their ministers about it. But they did not respond to my request. It was put forward by opposition party the SDLP and MLAs from every party spoke on it. DUP MLA Michelle McIlveen even acknowledged that NI has a “wider environmental issue”.
When will the penny finally drop that if farms continue polluting and decimating nature that they are shooting themselves in the foot? And do the DUP not realise people all across NI care about what is happening to Lough Neagh and water bodies across Northern Ireland - and are crying out for leadership and an urgent response to those issues?
We’ve heard NIEA say in the past, it will take 20 years to really make an impact on Lough Neagh after decades of pollution that has largely gone unchallenged. We need to start at the nug of the problem and that’s people and companies causing those problems. But after years of opposition, tens of thousands in legal bills and an unwavering will to protect their coastline and the nature it supports, No Gas Caverns finally won at the Court of Appeal this week.
Lough Neagh Blue-Green Algae DUP SDLP Antrim
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