Review of Environmental Governance in Northern Ireland Call for Evidence January 2025

Overview

Panel Introduction

The growing pressures on our shared environment have led the NI Assembly and Executive to adopt several new measures, from declaring a Climate Emergency to adopting Northern Ireland’s first Environmental Improvement Plan which aims to ‘collectively deliver real improvements in the quality of the environment'. From the algae bloom in Lough Neagh, to recent flooding to continued concern over the loss of biodiversity, the challenges facing our environment are of huge public concern. Yet environmental targets and objectives by themselves are not sufficient. We need to have the capacity to deliver them... and to rebuild public confidence in our ability to do so. 

The environmental challenges we face are complex and cannot be addressed in isolation by any one organisation. But among the many actors, public, private and from the voluntary sector active in this area, the Northern Ireland Environmental Agency (NIEA), the principal environmental regulator for Northern Ireland, has a unique role to play. And yet when we compare our environmental regulator to similar bodies in neighbouring jurisdictions in the rest of the UK and in Ireland, we note that NIEA is an outlier. It is both less well resourced (smaller budget, fewer staff), and less independent from government than its counterparts. This leads to concerns about its ability to deliver for the environment in a transparent, effective and timely way. This is particularly problematic as tackling environmental challenges will require difficult, sometimes unpopular decisions – a strong, well respected and well-resourced regulator is needed to both inform and support these decisions.  

This Call for Evidence is structured around six themes, including, but going beyond, a reformed NIEA and whether or not it should be independent. For many respondents these are not new questions – but the context is new. Northern Ireland is outside of the European Union, with continued environmental degradation but changing environmental rules and regulations, and we can learn from other jurisdictions on what has worked or is not working in designing and sustaining good environmental governance.  

Why your views matter

This Call for Evidence is an important part of our Independent Review and we look forward to receiving your responses.