OPINION: DUP and Sinn Fein should hang their heads in shame over state of Lough Neagh

https://theearthscorr.substack.com/p/dup-and-sinn-fein-should-hang-their

Where's that "urgent action" promised by the First Minister in 2023?

It’s been three over years since I first broke the story of how toxic algae was sweeping across Lough Neagh, putting fear in the hearts of swimmers, fishers, pet owners, nature lovers and business owners who relied on this once beautiful lake for their livelihoods and wellbeing.

A lackluster Lough Neagh Action Plan, pathetic Environmental Improvement Plan and long delayed Nitrates Action Programme later – and we are still no closer to seeing this jewel in the North’s crown get the long-overdue life support it needs to recover from years of treating it like an open sewer.

Let me remind you that over 40% of our water comes from Lough Neagh, while communities around the lough have relied on it for centuries to make a living, with eel fishers no longer able to do so.

But instead of protecting this vital natural treasure, Stormont has allowed – and some might say – even nurtured a farming system that has done it untold damage; while underfunded NI Water has been allowed to treat it like a raw sewage dump and households have been given no support to protect it from the harms inflicted by their outdated septic tanks unlike in RoI, where grants are available to replace them.

‘The problem is not rocket science’

The problem with Lough Neagh is not rocket science – it’s become a swirling mess of vile and toxic, neon green slop for three reasons:

• Unabated pollution from agriculture, NI Water and septic tanks

• The climate crisis heating its waters

• No cross-party political will to truly fix the problem for fear of losing votes

The only show in town when it comes to solving this problem is what’s called the Nitrates Action Programme.

But this legally required law to improve water quality by protecting it from agricultural pollution was recently – and unashamedly – called into question by the DUP and Sinn Fein during debate on an NI Assembly motion trying to block a public consultation on it, as scores of farmers watched on from the public viewing gallery.

The DUP’s Michelle McIlveen, while paying lip service to water quality and the Lough Neagh catastrophe, said one of their reasons for doing so was: “A minimum of 3,500 local farms will be affected by one of the toughest new measures: phosphorus balances”.

(If we are to have any chance of saving Lough Neagh – phosphorus levels need to be drastically cut.")

She added: “To comply with the P rules, some farmers would need to double the land that they currently use for slurry spreading. That land is simply not available, and, if it were, its price, thanks to the proposals, would be pushed up to such a degree that it would be utterly unaffordable to the average local farmer. The only alternative is reducing livestock numbers — a forced contraction of our agri-food sector that would hit local food production hard and drive a greater dependence on imports.”

That very statement highlights how NI is farming far too many animals as there simply isn’t enough land to cope with the slurry they produce and protect our water sources at the same time.

Much like McIlveen, Sinn Fein’s Declan McAleer also hit out at “stricter phosphorus limits, mandatory low-emission slurry-spreading equipment and compulsory buffer strips for arable and horticulture land” in the NAP and raised concerns about “herd reductions”.

I can understand both parties opposition to cutting livestock numbers – given Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster came up with Going for Growth.

But it also seems like their performance around DUP calls to ‘scrap the NAP’ was a bid to keep a hold of rural votes given the TUV is closing in on the DUP according to the latest LucidTalk poll, while a more comfortable Sinn Fein appears to be firmly trained on just one goal – a united Ireland – at the expense of all else.

But even if they are saying everything farmers want to hear – those same farmers will ultimately pay the price for opposition to any real plans to tackle the pollution poisoning our greatest water source, killing its fisheries and wildlife and rendering it useless as a recreational space.

Like the rest of us, they need healthy soils and water, to produce food which comes in the form of an ever mounting number of chickens, pigs, dairy cattle and beef herds reared in increasingly intensive factory farms across NI, which are creating a huge mess in every sense these days.

No current or former Executive party is innocent on the exploitation of Lough Neagh. An SDLP minister approved sand extraction up to 2035, while Alliance, the UUP, DUP, SDLP and Sinn Fein all rubber stamped Going for Growth.

I’m also lacking any faith in the TUV to champion environmental protection given their opposition to the Nature Bill at Westminster.

But I ask them all – if one industry is causing so much damage, why would you let it keep growing? To this day, planners are taking new applications for intensive pig and chicken farms, when we know the land can’t keep up with the faeces those animals will create.

While it might not be so easy to dial back on Going for Growth overnight – Stormont could put a moratorium on all new planning applications for pigs, chicken and cattle houses that are simply going to fuel the toxins already killing our waterways and the species that rely on them for life.

We also know from the NI Environmental Statistics Report 2025 that 48% of the people in NI see air, land and water pollution the biggest threat to our biodiversity and that according to 2024’s NI Water Classification Statistics every single one of NI’s 450 rivers, 21 lakes or 25 coastal waters failed to achieve good chemical status.

At the very least, we need a no nonsense approach to enforcement against polluters – with court fines that are actually going to hurt – and support for the NAP 2026-29.

We know from DAERA’s own NAP consultation report that: “The water quality improvements achieved from introduction of the Nitrates Action Programme in 2007 up to 2012 have in general been offset by intensification of the agricultural sector over the last 10 years.”

It adds: “From 2012 to 2022 average Soluble Reactive Phosphorus levels in our rivers increased by 55%. Therefore, the agricultural phosphorus surplus needs to be reduced significantly to improve water quality.”

That’s why they have suggested limiting the ‘Farm Phosphorus Balance’ limit of over 3,100 more intensively stocked farms that are churning out 150 kilos or more of livestock manure per hectare per year on top of those allowed to spread more slurry.

I can understand why these intensive farmers would baulk at the suggestion – and it’s clearly a large part of why they are rearing up against the new NAP – but this needs to happen if we are to have any chance of saving Lough Neagh and all the other waterways drowning in toxic blue-green algae.

So what are the solutions?

They can’t keep spreading it all on the land or exporting it with falsified documents over the border and we don’t have enough anaerobic digesters to hold all that sh*t or enough ships to send it all off to be incinerated, damn the shipping emissions and questions over where the nutrient-loaded AD plant digestate winds up.

Maybe now’s the time to have a serious discussion about reducing livestock numbers and let go of this crazy push to feed 10 times more people than the population of NI.

Why not restructure farm subsidies to help those that want to move away from chickens, pigs, sheep and cattle and pay them for tending the land in a way that soaks up our climate emissions, provides havens for nature to prevent biodiversity loss and grows more fruit and veg so we don’t have to rely on imports.

For those farmers who want to keep raising livestock, they need to adapt to a new way of operating that isn’t killing our lakes and rivers. That means less animals, producing less slurry and ensuring that slurry in spread in a way that it is isn’t running into the lakes providing our drinking water. If there are concerns about the cost of low emissions spreaders – surely someone can can launch a new business renting them?

These are dark times – we’ve got the catastrophic state of Lough Neagh etched in our brains; globally we’ve seen the floods washing away whole villages, out of control wildfires leaving scorched earth; whole countries being swallowed slowly by rising seas. No on can play dumb on the impacts our intensive consumption of everything from meat to dairy, clothes and cars is having on the world around us now.

In NI, our biggest issue is agriculture, and we need sensible conservations about the way forward and a just transition for farmers who want to be part of the solution if we are to ever find a way out of the mess we’re in, and to save Lough Neagh.

Shauna Corr
Sep 03, 2025