In his first year in office, Andrew Muir believes he has been “fair and balanced around both agriculture and the environment”.
He has thus far managed to stay on the right side of the north’s powerful farming lobby, while delivering an environmental improvement plan and setting out a series of actions aimed at tackling the Lough Neagh ecological crisis.
But some would argue the Alliance minister hasn’t gone far enough in redressing what he himself describes as the “trashing” of the north’s environment over recent decades.
While conceding that there’s no quick fix for Lough Neagh or the rest of the region’s waterways, he nonetheless argues there has been “tangible progress”.
“I can look back with a sense of pride that I’ve actually managed to turn the tide around the environment in Northern Ireland – put it on a better direction,” he says.
One criticism is that rather than fulfil a commitment made in 2020’s New Decade New Approach to create an independent environmental protection agency (EPA), the minister instead set-up a review panel, a move described by an umbrella group that includes National Trust, Friends of the Earth, and Christian Aid as “kicking the can down the road”.
He remains supportive of an EPA but stresses that it’s important to get it right.
“We’re doing this in a very focused way, in that we have a proper, engaged discussion about what an independent EPA would look like, and having the three panel members to take that forward will give it an element of independent rigour,” he says.
He hopes to publish the panel’s report in the summer and in September bring his EPA proposal to the executive, who will decide whether or not to back the plan.
The agriculture and environment minister is acutely aware that not all the executive parties share his vision.
He cites hold-ups lasting months with his environmental improvement plan and Lough Neagh action plan, and puts most of the blame on the DUP but also identifies a reluctance from other parties to publicly voice support.
Another area where he believes the DUP has sought to impede progress is in relation to climate change and the bid to achieve net zero.
He says the party’s critics of Stormont’s climate change legislation, passed on Edwin Poots’ watch in the last mandate, “need to give their head a wobble”.
“There’s some commentary, particularly from some in the DUP, that this is bad legislation, yet it was their minister who proposed the legislation and they voted for it in the final reading,” he says
“Many other people outside of Northern Ireland look to it with a sense of envy, because just transition runs right through it, and it’s very good quality legislation, but we need to implement it.”
December saw the assembly approve a carbon reduction target of 77% by 2040, alongside the first three carbon budgets, stipulating how much carbon can be emitted over a designated period.
The minister says the next stage is the executive’s speedy agreement of a climate action plan that sets out the policies to achieve the targets.
“Climate change isn’t something that we should debate as a theoretical issue,” says Mr Muir. “It’s a reality, particularly for our farming community, and we need to respond by implementing legislation, while understanding that people will focus on the costs of mitigation and adaption, but also there’s a cost to inaction, and that’s very, very significant.”
In regards to cleaning up the north’s polluted waterways, of which Lough Neagh is the most high-profile example, the minister believes greater investment is required in wastewater infrastructure, as well as addressing the damage caused by septic tanks.
He is diplomatic when discussing Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd’s responsibilities, acknowledging there are differences between Alliance and Sinn Féin on the future financing of NI Water,
“It’s completely clear that there needs to be significant investment in wastewater infrastructure, as it’s damaging our environment but also holding back housing targets and economic development,” he says.
“How that occurs is for the infrastructure minister to explore.”
Mr Muir has also set in train a process that will remove a provision dating back almost two decades, which he says, gives NI Water a “bye ball” in terms of enforcement and regulation if it can demonstrate stark historical under-investment.
Where the executive appears united is in opposition to the Labour government’s introduction of a £1 million threshold on Agricultural Property Relief, with inheritance tax charged at 20%.
The minister argues that the changes will have a “detrimental and a disproportionate impact” in Northern Ireland due to the “very significant number of family farms”.
He says given a recent Office of Budget Responsibility’s assessment of the policy indicating that the amount of tax raised would be much less than previously forecast, Chancellor Rachel Reeves should “go back to the drawing board”.
“It’s better to target it in terms of the scoundrels who are using the system, rather in terms of the family farms here in Northern Ireland,” he says.
He has also called for an immediate reform of the procedures for executive meetings, claiming it took six months to secure approval for his department’s environmental improvement plan.
He said that in addition to issues around finances and resources, the executive’s “procedures and institutions are an impediment to good, effective decision-making”.
The minister said relations between ministers are “very good and respectful” but that the executive needs to be “more agile” and “able to move at a faster pace”.
But he argues that there’s a need to reform the procedures for getting each minister’s items onto the executive agenda, which is at the discretion of the first and deputy first ministers.
The North Down MLA suggests that if an items fails to make it onto the agenda after a certain number of meetings, it should automatically be considered by ministers.
“Yes we need to reform the institutions to prevent collapse but we need to ensure business is transacted much quicker,” he said.
“If ministers have concerns or anything else, they need to engage and try to resolve those concerns rather than having stalemate – from my perspective, getting progress on some things feels like walking through treacle.”