Farmers set for heavier penalties for environmental breaches, says minister
Farmers are set for tougher punishments for environmental breaches after Stormont’s Agriculture minister announced his intent to reverse a law change that had capped the level of penalties
Andrew Muir said he could not stand over the reforms of the cross compliance regime introduced by former minister Edwin Poots in 2022.
His move comes amid efforts to clamp down on pollution incidents in Northern Ireland, particularly those linked to environmental problems affecting Lough Neagh.
Mr Muir said he was also going to review, in the conjunction with the Department for Justice, the sentencing framework in relation to fines and penalties for breaches of wider environmental legislation as he vowed to crack down on law breakers.
A Northern Ireland Environment Agency enforcement team of 20 staff is also being set up to specifically cover the Lough Neagh catchment area.
Last summer noxious algae blooms covered large parts of the lough and affected other waterways and beaches in the region.
One of the contributing factors is believed to include nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fertiliser running off fields.
The spread of the invasive zebra mussel species and climate change have also been linked to the algae blooms.
Farmers must comply with a set of environmental, health and animal welfare rules in order to qualify for state agricultural subsidises.
After Brexit, the system operated in the UK is no longer set by the EU.
In 2022, Mr Poots introduced changes in Northern Ireland that limited the scale of the penalties imposed on farmers found to have committed repeated negligent breaches of the rules to 15% of their basic subsidy payment.
The then DUP minister said the regime he was introducing was “fairer and more proportionate”.
Alliance Party minister Mr Muir told his Assembly scrutiny committee on Thursday that he has asked his officials to reverse that law change.
“I’m aware of what Minister Poots and the decisions he took in 2022 prior to leaving office in terms of cross compliance penalties, I don’t feel I can stand over that,” he said.
“And I’ve asked officials to commence work to reverse that, because it’s important that as minister I show leadership.
“These are difficult issues but I’m not going to shy away from them.”
DUP committee member William Irwin expressed concern around the prospect of excessive fines for farmers, claiming minor offences could be punished with penalties that were “totally out of kilter”.