Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): We are joined by Mr Robert Walsh, officer from the Northern Ireland Marine Task Force (NIMTF), and Mr Christopher McAteer, environmental strategy and advocacy manager from the Northern Ireland Environment Link (NIEL), who is here today on behalf of the Northern Ireland Freshwater Task Force.

I welcome you here today, gentlemen. I ask you to brief the Committee. Generally, we take a 10-minute synopsis, and then we open the floor to members for questions. Please go ahead.

Mr Robert Walsh (Northern Ireland Marine Task Force): Thank you very much. We thank the Committee for the opportunity. I will give a brief introduction of who we are and an overview summary. I will then pass to Christopher to move on to more detail on freshwater and then back to me for detail on marine.

The Northern Ireland Marine Task Force and the Freshwater Task Force are coalitions of environmental non-governmental organisations (eNGOs). NIMTF is working towards healthy, productive and resilient seas for Northern Ireland. The Freshwater Task Force aims to protect and improve Northern Ireland's freshwater ecosystems through collaborative action, research and advocacy.

The Fisheries, Aquaculture and Water Environment Bill represents an important opportunity to modernise Northern Ireland's approach to marine and freshwater management. The evidence that we present highlights significant environmental challenges, including the failure to achieve good environmental status for 13 out of 15 UK marine strategy indicators and the fact that no water body in Northern Ireland currently achieves overall good ecological status.

We support the Bill's progression but recommend stronger provisions on enforcement, transparency and environmental restoration. Key priorities include improved aquaculture licensing, ensuring that abandoned equipment can be removed, having fisheries management plans that are based on robust scientific evidence, the implementation of permit systems that prioritise low-impact fishing and transparent reporting and greater protection for non-target species to reduce by-catch.

A holistic source-to-sea approach should underpin implementation, linking freshwater and marine management through the river-based management plans. We also support stronger penalties for pollution, removal of obsolete river barriers, enhanced regulatory independence, transboundary cooperation and long-term funding to deliver environmental recovery in compliance with statutory obligations by 2027 to 2031.

I will pass over to Chris now.

Mr Christopher McAteer (Northern Ireland Environment Link): Thank you, Robert, and thank you, Chair and members.

The challenges faced by Northern Ireland's freshwater environment have been well documented but should never be taken for granted. The freshwater environment suffers from severe water quality deficits. As Robert mentioned, currently 0% of water bodies in Northern Ireland meet overall good ecological status due to the presence of persistent forever chemicals. River and lake ecological health has declined from 31% achieving good or high status in 2021 to 29% in 2024, while coastal water bodies remain stagnant at 48%. Those statistics paint an alarming picture of the health of Northern Ireland's waters. They also reveal the enormous challenges ahead in achieving water quality targets.

The water framework directive sets a target that all surface water bodies should reach good ecological status and good chemical status by 2027. That is also a target in the environmental improvement plan for Northern Ireland. At present, it seems highly unlikely that that will be achieved. A report from the NI Audit Office in 2024 concluded that, and, more recently, the Office for Environmental Protection assessed that progress towards that target was limited and that the overall prospects of meeting it were largely off track.

Achieving meaningful improvements in water quality will require a shift away from viewing environmental pressures in isolation and towards a genuinely catchment-based approach. Waterways are intrinsically connected, and the pressures affecting them often originate elsewhere in the wider catchment. River basin management plans provide the mechanism for that integrated approach.

Effective implementation of the Bill should, therefore, support a more holistic catchment framework that addresses the cumulative impacts of pollution, alteration and habitat degradation rather than relying solely on sector-specific interventions. In that regard, the provisions relating to water abstraction, impoundment and river connectivity are particularly welcome in the Bill. However, legislative reform must also address the persistent weaknesses of environmental enforcement in Northern Ireland. Current penalties for water pollution frequently fail to reflect the environmental harm caused and are unlikely to act as an effective deterrent to polluters. Between 2019 and 2023, only 63 fines were issued for water pollution offences, despite hundreds of recorded instances, including numerous that were classified as medium or high in severity. The relatively low level of fines imposed raises serious concerns that non-compliance can continue and simply be treated as an acceptable business risk by operators.

A number of long-standing governance regulatory reforms should, therefore, be progressed alongside the Bill. Recommendations from the review of environmental governance and the Office for Environmental Protection have highlighted the need for more robust, independent systems on environmental regulation. That includes the consideration of unlimited fines and updated sentencing guidance to ensure that penalties are proportionate to the seriousness of offences and provide a genuine deterrent effect. In addition, concerns regarding the statement of regulatory principles and intent (SORPI) arrangement with Northern Ireland Water continue to warrant attention, particularly in relation to regulatory consistency and public confidence in environmental oversight.

Finally, given the significant contribution that diffuse agricultural pollution makes to the degradation of freshwater ecosystems, there is merit in increasing transparency around breaches of farm payment cross-compliance requirements. Greater public accessibility of enforcement information would strengthen accountability and public confidence. At the same time, policy should continue to recognise and reward farmers who adopt sustainable land management practices, reduce pollution risks and deliver environmental improvements. A balanced approach that combines accountability with positive incentives is likely to be more effective in securing long-time environmental gains for Northern Ireland's catchments.

Before I pass back to Robert, I will discuss very briefly the source-to-sea approach that we would like to see here and the transboundary priorities. The success of environmental ambitions will depend on recognising the interconnected nature of freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems. Environmental pressures do not respect administrative boundaries. Consequently, downstream marine protected areas (MPAs) can be exposed to cumulative pressures arising from direct marine activities and degraded water quality entering from catchment areas. Addressing those challenges requires a genuinely integrated source-to-sea approach that considers river, lake and coastal networks and species and pollutants across the entire catchment by embedding a stronger source-to-sea perspective in future policy and implementation frameworks. Northern Ireland has an opportunity here to maximise the environmental return on investment from restoration works.

The effectiveness of any new regulatory framework will depend substantially on implementation. Marine and freshwater regulations suffer from chronic resourcing issues. Indeed, they are in deficit. Successful implementation will rely on securing dedicated funding streams in the fourth cycle river basin management plan and delivering transparent, stakeholder-led co-design processes.

Robert will briefly discuss some more of the issues in the marine environment.

Mr Walsh: As Chris highlighted, the marine environment is often subject to a double-impact effect. Those pressures have major impacts not only on the condition of habitats and species but on industries and wider society. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) sets requirements for water classification based on overall health. The poorer the condition, the longer it can take for industries such as aquaculture to depurate or process shellfish product to prevent diseases such as amnesic shellfish poisoning or paralytic shellfish poisoning, which affect society. We have continued degradation of water quality. Those longer-maintained durations of processing further impact on aquaculture as an industry.

There are issues to do with responsibility resting solely with the aquaculture licence holder. In circumstances where a licence may need to be transferred in the event of the provider going bust or being unable to continue their work, the gear remains abandoned and cannot be removed without a licence holder's permission. It is part of a licence condition that all gear in that event is removed. To achieve that, however, greater permissions would need to be granted to DAERA.

Additionally, there is no distinction between a commercial aquaculture licence for industry and a restoration licence, leaving restoration projects requiring aquaculture licences subject to the same strict criteria where their licence provides a public good through nature-based solutions. Amendments to marine licensing should allow for a distinction to be made here and secure follow-on legislation for Lough Foyle and Carlingford lough.

Bathing water quality and recreational angling will be heavily impacted on. A survey on interacting with wild waters that was carried out by Surfers Against Sewage highlighted that 34% of individuals surveyed had become sick at 12 identified bathing water sites. Our own research on the World Health Organization's safe levels of E. coli showed that "safe" is zero individuals per 100 ml whilst excellent water classification in the marine crosses into the very high category of that. That further demonstrates that water pollution issues are having a very detrimental impact on public health. Recreational angling has suffered from fish kills in freshwater rivers, taking, as was highlighted by the Lough Neagh Rivers Trust, five to 10 years for populations to recover provided that no further issues occur along that body of water.

There must be alignment between marine conservation efforts and industries to ensure that nature and society can progress together as a result of changes to the Bill, starting with permits and alignment of fisheries management plans with other statutory obligations such as river basin management plans. Fisheries management plans require clear and prescriptive language, including robust stock assessments and alignment with other strategies and action plans to reduce non-target species' mortality such as by-catch in sea birds, seals, lampreys, salmonids and elasmobranchs. Technical conservation measures should be co-designed with fishers, scientists and NGOs as has been done in the marine environment. Permits should serve as a central management tool that prioritises low-impact, small-scale fishers. Permits must ensure mandatory annual publication of compliance, allocation and quotas so that transparent and effective adaptive management can be put in place.

Permits for recreational angling and tourism must be aligned to benefit conservation plans and strategies, such as is the case with the sea bird and elasmobranchs conservation strategies, to maintain proper species handling. Whilst partnering with tourism bodies to leverage economic benefits in many of our areas of outstanding natural beauty, we would expect further work to contribute under the finalised nature recovery strategy.

Without enhancing and furthering existing fixed monetary penalties, we cannot ensure that an effective deterrent is in place, especially one that guarantees that repeat offenders are discouraged, based on the same financial penalties regardless of occurrence. Repeat offences need to be made publicly known as a way of assessing that management is effective and to ensure that those are enforced across all marine zones. The money from the fixed penalties is not guaranteed to redress the environmental damage.

Overall, we see a need to strengthen the language in the Bill to guarantee environmental compliance and boost water-based industries.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much for your presentation.

You made the point about resources a couple of times. You mention in your written submission that:

How will that be resourced, and have you any idea what the financial resource implications for DAERA would be to implement that?

Mr Walsh: I do not have the specifics of those exact requirements.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I wanted to ask you about abandoned gear. Would you propose amendments to the Bill to deal with the fact that there is abandoned gear in the waterways, perhaps as a result of people going out of business who have not been held accountable?

Mr Walsh: Clause 18 is "Transfer of aquaculture licences". As it stands, only the holder of the aquaculture licence may apply to the Department to transfer the licence. In circumstances where an aquaculture licence holder writes to the Department to outline a scenario, is there potential in the Bill to give the power to DAERA to take over the responsibility in that circumstance? I cannot see anything in the proposed new section 11D that highlights that ability. We would like to see an additional component there.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): I have a question that is about transboundary management in areas such as Lough Foyle and Carlingford lough. What risks do you foresee if separate legislation for those areas is delayed? What provisions would you like to see prioritised to ensure effective cross-border management?

Mr Walsh: We know that the legislation pertaining to Lough Foyle and Carlingford lough cannot proceed unless this Bill is finalised. Our concern is that there would be a mismanagement between the Fisheries, Aquaculture and Water Environment Bill that is updated and the legislation that is already in place for those transboundary areas; that there would be a mismatch in what is prescribed in those components. The sooner we see those follow-on pieces of legislation come in, the more quickly aligned those can be.

Mr McAteer: May I add to that more broadly, Chair, on the question of the transboundary issue? The legislation has to ensure regulatory alignment, particularly with article 50 of the EU regulation on nature restoration, in order to restore river connectivity and address transboundary river catchments seamlessly. We do not want to see fragmentation there, because administrative complexity can end up having serious impacts on the water environment.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): In your written submission, you mention "removing obsolete barriers" in rivers. What steps do you take to ensure that those barriers are obsolete? I note that barriers are in place on some rivers to slow the flow. How can you be absolutely sure that that process will not do damage to river flow?

Mr McAteer: The Department's assessments have to be correct in order to determine whether or not such barriers are obsolete and what measures may need to be taken to replace them. Part of the issue that I have been hearing from our members on this matter is that we are not clear whether DAERA has the appropriate powers to go on to land or areas that potentially have obsolete barriers. If it does not, and it has to through a process of getting permission, that can really slow things down. There may be barriers that are preventing the migration of fish and preventing fish movement, as well as water flow. Those barriers can have a negative impact on the water environment. We need to look further into that issue and the appropriate powers that DAERA has to access land.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you very much.

Mr McAleer: I want to ask you about the barriers. Is the issue of access to do with the fact that a private person may be a riparian owner?

Mr McAteer: There could be issues like that, as to responsibility for repairs and so on. I will have to go back to our members to get exact clarification on that. The right to access is a big issue that our members have highlighted to us. Where DAERA officials cannot get on to the land to carry out inspections and assessments, as mentioned in response to the Chair's question, that creates issues as well. We need to look into that a bit more. We will get back to you on that, once we speak to our members.

Mr McAleer: From experience of riparian issues as a former councillor and as an MLA, I know that a lot of rivers are designated and not designated by the Drainage Council. Do you see the Drainage Council having a part to play in the implementation of the Bill?

Mr McAteer: That question did not come up in our discussions prior to this, so, again, I may have to follow up with you on that, Declan, if that is all right. I will provide more on that to the Committee.

Mr McAleer: One of the issues that the Lough Neagh Rivers Trust raised last week was the importance of having an independent environmental protection agency (EPA). The trust also suggested having an environmental ombudsman. What are the NI Marine Task Force and the NI Environment Link's views on that?

Mr McAteer: The sector, of which NIEL is part, has been strongly behind having an independent EPA for decades and has been pushing for it. It fits into the picture. The Bill is just one piece of legislation in one area of the environment that we are looking at. Unfortunately, we have really weak governance in Northern Ireland for water environment, as we do for all other aspects of the environment. We are well behind most other countries in western Europe, and we see an EPA as being crucial. It would be no less crucial in this case.

Mr McAleer: Do you see an independent EPA having more robust powers than the current oversight arrangements that we have?

Mr McAteer: It would be worth creating only if it did.

Mr McAleer: Thank you.

Miss McIlveen: Two public consultations were carried out. The explanatory memorandum states:

You have provided us today with a substantial list of where, you feel, there are gaps. What conversations did you have with the Department during the development of the policy behind the Bill and, subsequently, post consultation?

Mr Walsh: The Marine Task Force responded to the fisheries and aquaculture component of it, and there was a joint response to the water environment side. There were components of the river basin management plan discussions, such as our asking about what the penalties for repeat offenders would be and looking at how that would play out on the ground, that may not necessarily have been taken on board. A lot of evidence was taken from our consultation responses, so, if there are still gaps and if components are missing, they may not have been taken on board at the time that we provided those submissions. The points certainly came up during follow-up conversations on the river basin management plan, significant water management issues and bathing water policy. We would like to see things a bit more aligned to those.

Miss McIlveen: Obviously, Environment Link is very much involved with part of the co-design piece. Were you involved in developing the Bill?

Mr McAteer: I will have to check. It predates my time with the organisation, I am afraid, and I do not have that information to hand, but I can certainly follow up with you on that.

Miss McIlveen: From our perspective, it would probably be useful for this to go back to the Department and for officials to come back to us on whether it is incorporated or whether some of it will be in guidance. There may be reasons for it not being included at the time.

The Committee Clerk: We can forward it to the Department.

Miss McIlveen: It would be useful to have that information early on.

Mr Walsh: Sorry, Chair, you asked about the resourcing side of it. We talked about funding going back to redress environmental damage. That idea came from finding that the fixed monetary penalties in marine protected areas were going back into the Northern Ireland Consolidated Fund, which can be disbursed across the Executive. It is not ring-fenced to address the damage to MPAs. That is one of the areas that we would like to see included.

Ms Finnegan: Thank you very much for your briefing. It is interesting, as always, and there is learning every time. Blackwater is a good example of a transboundary river, because it runs through Lough Neagh and County Monaghan. There are similar waterways in my constituency, which is on the boundary of County Monaghan and County Louth. How closely do you work with the relevant body in the South?

Mr Walsh: Our equivalent in the South is Fair Seas, which focuses primarily on marine protected areas. Under the Northern Ireland Environment Link, there are two PEACE PLUS-funded projects with the Irish Environmental Network: the Cross-border Opportunities for a Resilient Environment (CORE) project and the Collaborative Horizons for All-Island Nature and Governance Enhancement (CHANGE) project. Those projects look at environment policy divergence and at how to incorporate resilient ecosystems for communities, and they will run for the next three years. We have discussed the matter, especially in the Marine Task Force, in the context of impacts coming from upstream. For example, if there were a water pollution incident upstream of Carlingford, what would happen when it reached Carlingford lough and impacted on the marine conservation zone or the special protection areas (SPAs) and special areas of conservation (SACs) on the south side of the border? I do not know how much we have engaged with the North/South Ministerial Council (NSMC), but it is in such areas that we want to see work.

There is also the Northern Ireland coastal forum, which includes DAERA and the Department for Infrastructure and looks a lot at resilience in respect of coastal erosion and coastal adaptation. The National Trust, one of our members, sits on the coastal adaptation side of that. There is probably more work that could be done, but work in that area is ongoing.

Ms Finnegan: You have said that the EU is far more advanced than we are. From working with our counterparts in the Twenty-six Counties, do you find them to be more advanced in that area?

Mr Walsh: There are lessons to be learned. Christopher highlighted the EU's restoration law, certain elements of which we should try to align with.

Ms Finnegan: That is good.

If you do not mind, Chair, I will ask a final question. There is still a territorial dispute over Lough Foyle. Do you see that as being an issue when it comes to the implementation of the Bill?

Mr Walsh: There is potential for that. We do not have a finalised, publicly available version of the Northern Ireland marine plan, which would take account of the transboundary areas. I would need to go back to my members and check this, but there is probably more work to be done on that. I hope that it would not hold things up. My understanding is that separate legislation for Carlingford lough and Lough Foyle can be created after the Bill is finalised.

Ms Finnegan: Perfect. Thank you very much.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): The failure to achieve good environmental status for 13 of the 15 indicators is alarming. What are the principal reasons for that decline? Do you believe that the Bill will help to address that and make a difference?

Mr Walsh: The 15 indicators are adopted from the EU marine strategy framework directive. That had 11 indicators and then expanded to include 15, which are split between marine ecosystems indicators and human pressures indicators. The majority of the marine ecosystems indicators are in the red. For the pressures, the failures are on marine litter and contaminants. Those are measured at UK level, so Northern Ireland will have made its contribution. In the previous assessment in 2019, we failed on only 11 indicators, so we have gone backwards in the past six years. We do not know whether that is because we have more information and more is known about parameters and variables in our environment and how they interact with one another or because there has been a deterioration in the environment. One of the challenges is effective monitoring, and we know that we do not have event duration monitoring on sewage outfalls in Northern Ireland. Therefore, we do not have a true understanding of the scale of sewage going into our natural environment. A little bit of work has been done on that, but we need to progress that at scale if we are to better understand the overall impact of water pollution. We cannot address things that we do not have enough information on. From a marine perspective, contaminants and marine litter are identified, but the information is for the UK overall, and we need to break it down to Northern Ireland-specific data. We have highlighted metrics in our response to the nature recovery strategy, and a lot of those strategies and action plans should be aligned to meet those metrics.

Mr McAteer: I will add to that on how the Bill will address the state of our waters. We are very supportive of a lot of the objectives in the Bill, because they are appropriate and to do with ecosystem sustainability, precautionary principles and so on. However, what we hear from the sector is that they are not quite sufficiently defined at this stage. It would be helpful to have more statutory targets in improving water quality; enforceable duties would be good; and measurable outcomes are important. There should also be a clear duty to recover fish populations when kills have happened and to improve ecological condition. Additional objectives that could be included to be helpful in improving water quality could be around habitat protection and restoration. Others noted were around biodiversity recovery, catchment resilience and so on.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you. There is work to be done.

Members, are there any more questions?

Ms Murphy: I have a quick question on the back of Aoife's question about the set-up in the Twenty-six Counties. Does the South have any legislation that is comparable to this Bill?

Mr Walsh: I would need to look into that.

Mr McAteer: Yes. We would have to look into that. Robert mentioned the CHANGE project that NIEL is undertaking. It has only started. We hope to have a great resource on the comparative legislation on each side of the border.

Ms Murphy: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Tom or Gareth, do you have any questions?

Mr Wilson: No.

Mr T Buchanan: I am all right, thank you.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Thank you for coming in. Do you want to add anything further?

Mr Walsh: We are happy to provide what we said today if that would help.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Yes. You agreed to come back to the Committee on barriers, the riparian access that Declan raised and the Drainage Council.

Mr Walsh: Yes. We will come back on that as well.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): Is there anything else?

The Committee Clerk: Chair, we agreed to forward the information to DAERA to find out why certain elements do not seem to be appearing.

The Chairperson (Ms D Armstrong): OK. Thank you very much for coming in. The session was really helpful.