Feargal Sharkey: Water Bill fails to tackle ‘dysfunctional’ regulatory system

Environmental activist and singer Feargal Sharkey has criticised the new Water Bill for failing to target a “dysfunctional regulatory system”.

Under the new Bill, executives could face jail if they fail to co-operate or obstruct investigations, and regulators would have the power to issue severe and automatic fines without having to direct resources to lengthy probes.

However, Mr Sharkey, the Londonderry-born former singer of punk band The Undertones, told Sky News that the water pollution crisis “has clearly got to do with regulatory failure” and new laws are not required to solve it.

He said on Thursday: “The failure has clearly got to do with regulatory failure and a regulatory system that’s completely dysfunctional; there’s nothing here that deals with that, that even discusses it, there’s no reform.

“We don’t need new regulations, we don’t need new laws, we’ve got 35 years’ worth of laws that have never been applied – you should force them (the regulators) to go out and apply the law as it stands today, that would have been a massive step forward.

“I also note that simple instruction is missing from this long list of stuff.

“I think Government had a real opportunity here to show clear visionary leadership, to show it had an action plan, to fix all of this, and unfortunately we’ve ended up with a long list of stuff that, frankly, costs nothing and I suspect will achieve even less.”

Mr Sharkey told the programme that “for 20 years” existing laws have allowed for company directors to receive “unlimited fines” for “that kind of environment vandalism”.

“I cannot find a single example of any company director ever prosecuted, ever being fined a penny”, he said, adding that potential jail terms announced in the new Bill would be for executives who fail to co-operate or who obstruct investigations.

“I guarantee you right now it will never ever happen; what we needed was decisive clear leadership and sadly I can’t see that today”, he said.

Mr Sharkey told Sky that he became an environmental campaigner due to his love of rivers and fly fishing, and growing up in a “very unsettled” Northern Ireland with a mother who demanded they confront apparent social injustices when they see them.