Mr. Cathal Mallaghan:

I will talk about a few issues but first I welcome the work the shared island unit has been doing to date. One of its pillars is environmental issues. The biggest environmental catastrophe happening on the island of Ireland today is in Lough Neagh.

The Executive has agreed the Lough Neagh action plan consisting of 37 actions, of which 14 have been completed so far. The Minister is currently working on a shoestring. He does not have enough money to fulfil all the commitments of that plan. There is an opportunity for the shared island unit to shore that up because 40% of the drinking water that the people in the North use comes from Lough Neagh. As well as that the tributaries of the Lough Neagh delta where all the water and nutrients come from not only come from the Six Counties in the North but also from County Monaghan so there is a bit of a responsibility there.

The problems that Lough Neagh has are based around the overloading of nutrients into the water stream, climate change and the presence of Zebra mussels. The big problem with nutrients is that so many phosphates are going into the water that it creates a blue and green algae bloom whenever the weather heats up in summertime. I am sure that all the members have seen the terrible images on television or the Internet over the past number of months. The weather is starting to cool so the algal bloom is starting to disperse. It is important that we keep this issue on our agenda on a year-round basis because if we only leave it until July and August, nothing will be done to fix it. Continuous funding is required to resolve it and to work with all the groups around the lough, including farmers and landowners, to stop this excess nutrient from entering the water.

We also need to have a conversation on stopping phosphorus from getting into the island in the first place and stopping it at source. This relates to the importation of all the grains for feed sources. It would be really good to examine a programme to diversify farmers from some type of livestock farming to arable crops.

On a wider issue, Lough Neagh does not benefit from being designated by Waterways Ireland. That means the largest water mass on this island is not navigable and is not part of that whole scheme. That is something we should work towards as well.

As I have the committee's attention, I want to raise the issue of the A5. It is a very important road for us in this part of the North. It is also the most dangerous road on these islands. As members will be all aware, the A5 project has been held up through court issues in trying to make progress in finding a way forward to get a part of the road built. I want to make the members aware that while the appeal is being prepared, legislative changes are required and they are in process. I thank the shared island fund for its continued support for these large infrastructural projects. They are vitally important for shortening journey times across this island from Donegal to Dublin and will save people's lives because the A5 has become so treacherous.