Over a year after Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir found £1.6m within DAERA coffers to fund 28 new posts to work on addressing pollution in Lough Neagh, 21 of these people are now in place, last Thursday’s meeting of the Stormont Agriculture committee was told.

Briefing the committee, Catriona Davis from the NI Environment Agency (NIEA) said the recruitment process for the remaining posts is on-going, with the jobs involving “monitoring, assessment, inspection and enforcement roles across a number of teams”.

Some of the new recruits have completed around 130 site visits to check rivers flowing into Lough Neagh. When asked for examples of what they have found, Davis said they had identified unlicensed abstraction of water by a commercial premise and discharge from a septic tank. There has also been sewage fungus which has been traced back to source.

Davis didn’t give any specific agricultural examples.

“Where there are discharges identified from agricultural premises they will be reported to the Ag Regs team,” she said.

Poor

She also confirmed that in the latest NI water quality report, there has been a “minimal improvement” in the quality of water in Lough Neagh, with its status now classified as “poor” rather than “bad”.

Looking ahead to the next six months, a group has been tasked with bringing forward proposals for enhanced enforcement powers and fixed penalty notices for polluters, while CAFRE will be delivering further farm water quality events, confirmed Adele Willis from DAERA.