Thérèse Coffey revealed her plans yesterday to clean up the sewage being dumped into the environment. Most people agree that her clean water plans are not hard hitting enough.

Feargal Sharkey, a campaigner on cleaning up our polluted rivers and beaches said “There was little in yesterday’s announcement to suggest that the government has a grip on the problem”.

So Thérèse, it’s time to toughen up the legislation, issue fines to the polluters that are big enough to be a deterrent rather than a slap on the wrist and ring fence the money collected in fines to upgrade the sewage network. It is not for you to give up on the problem and let the water companies pass the clean up costs onto the bill payers.