Alliance Concerned At DUP Block ON IEPA

Alliance Mournes Councillor Jill Truesdale says DUP block on Independent Environmental Protection Agency is “senseless and undemocratic”

Alliance Councillor Jill Truesdale has condemned the DUP’s blocking of an independent Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) for Northern Ireland, calling it senseless and undemocratic.

The comments follow an Alliance motion at Newry Mourne and Down District, making the case for changing the Assembly system to remove the ability of a single party to unilaterally block and veto proposals and highlighting the DUP’s obstruction of the environmental regulator as a case in point.

The Council motion passed because with support from Sinn Fein, Independents and SDLP with opposition from the DUP and UUP.

“It is sheer hypocrisy to decry the crisis at Lough Neagh or the illegal dump at Mobuoy yet stand in the way of enhancing safeguards through an independent Environmental Protection Agency,” said Jill.

“We should be learning lessons, but despite this, the ‘un’Democratic Unionist Party has blocked Alliance Minister Andrew Muir’s efforts to establish an IEPA. We are the only part of the UK without an independent regulator.

“However, it seems the party is more than content with sea borders when it comes to environmental protection, or indeed social issues.

“Given the eye-watering cost of cleaning up environmental disasters, it is disingenuous to argue that cost is the barrier here.

“Continuing to take our environment for granted is a false economy and fails to recognise that our economic and social well-being is entirely reliant on nature’s ability to provide.

“The opposition is not only senseless, it is also undemocratic. It is the will of the Assembly that an independent Environmental Protection Agency be established, yet, because of blocks and vetoes built into our system, one minority party is preventing progress.

“This is yet another example of why we desperately need the UK and Irish Governments to begin a process of reform.”

Jill added: “An IEPA was a commitment of New Decade, New Approach, an agreement that the DUP signed up to and now reneges on.

“I know that communities in Newry, Mourne and Down District area want to see that promise delivered on and are sick of this dysfunctional system that does not work for them.”