The relationship between the new DAERA Minister and the Agriculture Committee appears to have soured as members joked it was “good to see him” in the chamber because it was their only chance to.
Northern Ireland’s Agriculture Committee chairman Declan McAleer made the comments during a session debating simplifications to farm payment rules on Monday (February 22).
In response, the minister said the comments were “very party-political” but made no offer to meet members of the committee.
It comes just days after Agriculture Committee members were told the newly-appointed minister, Gordon Lyons, had declined their invitation to meet with them.
“I read in the farming press that the minister has been meeting stakeholders, assuring them that he will make decisions, yet, when the committee requested to meet him to discuss his priorities, that request was turned down,” chairman Declan McAleer told the chamber.
It is good that he is here today because it is an opportunity to see him face-to-face – an opportunity that we do not get in committee.
McAleer raised several issues he felt there had been a “lack of progress” on, accusing the minister of a “lack of will to make progress”.
“…The decisions that have been made prove that the department can be decisive when it wants to be,” he said.
“Sadly, however, that has not been the case for the Glenelly farmers, who have been waiting four years, and there is the same lack of progress from the department on the TB strategy, the ammonia action plan, climate change legislation, a new rural policy and a new agriculture policy.
“I am sure that there are many other areas in which there has been a lack of progress and a lack of will to make progress.”
TB interventions ‘expected this year’
Responding, Minister Lyons described McAleer’s comments as a “party-political contribution”.
“We had talk of climate change, ammonia, rural frameworks and TB. Those are all progressing,” he said.
“I hope to have more information with the committee soon in relation to what the department is doing.
He mentioned the lack of action so far on TB. That is something that I am pushing in my short time in office. It is my expectation that something will happen and that we will see interventions this year.
“I hope that that will be welcomed, although I remind the Member that, from 2007 to 2016, it was his party that held the post that I am currently in. Where was the progress during that time?
“Where was the progress during the three years when there was no Assembly – when it was his party that kept the Assembly down, preventing us from taking action?”
