To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (i) for his assessment of the 2024 Rivers Trust report State of Our Rivers; (ii) to detail the cross-departmental work he has identified as necessary to improve the quality of our waterways; and (iii) to detail the financial and ecological cost of failing to act on the evidence and warnings of the numerous reports and the water-based ecological incidents of recent years.

The findings highlighted by the Rivers Trust report were published by NIEA in 2021 as part of the Water Framework Directive Statistics Report, which included the information that no river water bodies in Northern Ireland achieved overall good status. At that time, NIEA explained that this was due to a change in the status reporting to include so-called ‘forever’ chemicals in the assessment.

The work required is summarised in the draft third River Basin Management Plan for Northern Ireland. Following my consideration and review in light of the challenges posed by the occurrence of blue-green algal blooms in Lough Neagh, I will bring the Plan to the Executive for consideration in due course.

The department does not presently hold the data. It is difficult to track data citied but is a matter which my Department is exploring with Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).