NIEA: we do what we can

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) has long had a rough time, having had to regulate industry, implement EU directives and tackle pollution without the resources, political support or enforcement powers of its three more robust siblings.

Then in 2012 the Mobuoy scandal broke. The discovery of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of macerated waste dumped in Derry revealed just how widespread organised crime was in Northern Ireland’s waste sector and exposed the NIEA’s inability to deal with some big problems.