To ask the Minister for Infrastructure for her assessment of the impact of the draft 2021/22 budget on Northern Ireland Water.

The draft 2021/22 budget position effectively provides very limited scope to provide the additional Public Expenditure that NI Water relies on from the Executive to provide the essential water and wastewater services that we all rely on for our health, to provide capacity for housing development, to protect our environment and to stimulate the economic recovery from Covid-19.

NI Water has planned to embark on an ambitious new Price Control, PC21, which would see it begin to recover our water and wastewater infrastructure from years of underinvestment and neglect. If the Executive cannot provide the required funding, then the actions needed to live within the Public Expenditure baseline in 2021/22, would require a complete re-evaluation of the services that NI Water could provide within a very constrained budget, as opposed to what the Regulator determines is needed. The consequences of not meeting PC21 levels of investment would be detrimental to environmental standards and could have implications for public health. The pressure on the Resource budget would also limit the company’s efficiency and ability to respond to extreme weather events or other crises. The consequences of not addressing this will detrimentally impact on all aspects of life and the ability of the Executive to deliver on its own Programme for Government. I will continue to press at the Executive for the levels of investment required in our water and waste water infrastructure. Without this investment, the Executive will not be able to deliver on its Programme for Government.