Mark H Durkan interview: community power
New Environment Minister Mark H Durkan talks to Owen McQuade about his plans for transferring power from central government, ultimately down to councils and communities. Other priorities include climate change, road safety and a change of tack on the Planning Bill.
“Just the depth and breadth of it” is Mark H Durkan’s fairly overwhelming first impression of his brief as Environment Minister. “It deals with such a wide variety of issues from local government reform to road safety, to the more scientific and technical aspects such as the Marine Division.”
Having “a bit of life experience behind me” helped Durkan when he was first elected to Derry City Council, aged 27. “In terms of interest in politics, I would have always done a bit of canvassing at election time but that was more out of family loyalty than anything else,” he recalls, “although I would have always subscribed to SDLP values.”
He was well-known in the community through that work and playing for football and Gaelic teams “and that was picked up on by other party members when I was out canvassing.” Once elected, he says: “I quickly got to enjoy the public representation aspect rather than the politics of the role. Although I am enjoying my new role [as Minister], I will work hard to balance my ministerial work with my constituency work as I think it is vital you don’t lose that local contact.”
Social justice “is core to the SDLP and to me.” As his party’s social development spokesman, he closely scrutinised the Welfare Reform Bill and drafted several amendments to mitigate its impact. “Without these amendments, the Bill will hurt some of the most vulnerable people in our society and it is dressed up as reform,” he comments.
The Local Government Bill is the first piece of legislation Durkan has brought before the Assembly. “The aim of the Bill is pretty straightforward,” he explains. “It is about reforming local government, moving from a 26-council model to an 11-council model, the aim being to streamline services and make local government more effective and more responsive, giving them [councils] more power and more power to local communities and ultimately empowering people to make decisions locally.”
Planning
Having been a councillor, he thinks that those representatives should have more of a role and highlights the devolution of planning powers to councils, to take effect on 1 April 2015. The new power of community planning is “extremely important” as it will result in councillors working with other statutory agencies “to shape that area for the future.”
Durkan continues: “A local council should know the needs of its people better than central government, and hopefully that will be reflected in the community plans brought forward. The input of others into the community planning process makes it unique here, with input from statutory bodies and the local community.”
He is currently working on a single strategic planning policy statement that will bring together all current planning policy statements: “We have got it down to 116 pages! That is to give the councils direction with planning.” Obviously, the transfer is also “going to require a lot of training and up-skilling for local councillors.”
The Minister reflects: “I know when I was a councillor, a lot of councillors would have been rubbing their hands at the prospect of getting planning and I don’t think it is quite a simple as that because of the quasi-judicial role.” The reform will also involve the transfer of departmental staff to local councils and work is under way on that.
Planning staff are currently working with some councils and will be working closely with the new clusters for the new council areas, to draw up new area plans. “That is when community planning will also kick in.”
On the Planning Bill, he notes that the DUP and Sinn Féin amendments were opposed by his predecessor, Alex Attwood, and the other Assembly parties. The legal advice received by Attwood has been cleared by the Executive. It states that giving power to OFMDFM to nominate special economic development zones and the removal of the right to judicial review has been “deemed to be outside the legal competence of the Assembly.”
Durkan remarks: “So we have real concerns about them and therefore there are huge concerns, not just in the Assembly but I think among the wider public, around the potential that these amendments could have for say fracking, for example. You could make it a lot easier for things like that to be brought in.”
At the time of interview, he was weighing up “how best to progress the Bill or otherwise.” Much of the Bill’s content is about bringing forward the transfer of powers to councils – “fast forwarding it if you like” – but many of the provisions already existed in the Planning Act 2011. They will, in any case, be transferred in April 2015. His conclusion: “So the longer it goes without this Bill coming in, the less need there is to bring the Bill in because the legislation is there to bring the functions over anyway.”
Heritage
The quality of Ireland’s environment clearly impresses Durkan. “We are blessed on this island, north and south, with what we have naturally and what we have been left with by our ancestors,” he remarks. The department has been bringing built heritage “back to life” and estimates that for every pound spend on this work, another £7.60 is generated in the local economy.
“It has huge benefits in terms of tourism,” Durkan states. “It is important also that we allow communities to realise the value of the built and natural heritage as sometimes they are better placed to maximise the benefits of it than anyone else.”
He wants to get “buy-in” from other government departments for climate change mitigation and adaptation. “Unfortunately, a couple of departments have been dragging their heels on this and it is up to me to decide how to bring this forward, perhaps with a Bill,” he comments.
“At this stage, I am deliberating if there is any point in bringing forward a Bill to deal with climate change, whenever there will be political opposition to that. Or it might be more productive to work with other departments on a strategy and get them to sign up to that.”
The Minister acknowledges the view that reducing greenhouse gas emissions (especially in agri-food) will constrain the economy. He sees agri-food as “a real opportunity for growth” but is also “confident that there is a balance that can be struck to balance both the economy and the environment.”
North/South
The Department of the Environment’s main counterpart in the Republic is the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, led by Minister Phil Hogan. Road safety is overseen by Leo Varadkar’s Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.
On all-island co-operation, he says: “It is fair to say that there is a very high level of co-operation and it would be good to see that continue with my department and indeed other departments: North/South makes sense.” The SDLP has “always extoled the virtues” of North/South co-operation and he adds: “I’m glad to see others take notice of that, in areas like health and the economy.”
Specifically, he will be bringing forward a Road Traffic Safety Amendments Bill, covering mutual recognition of penalty points between the two jurisdictions. “We are bringing our drink driving limit into line with the South, which I think is important,” he says. “We share air and water and also our roads, and in border counties we see a lot of tragedies on the roads.”
Another policy area, waste, is a “hot topic here as it is across Europe.” The European Commission is pressing Northern Ireland to reduce its landfill rate and he’s keen that the province does that, firstly by reducing the volume of waste and then by increasing the volume recycled.
“In an ideal world, there would be no need for waste treatment,” he comments, “but we are a long way from a zero waste society, unfortunately, and we have to explore every opportunity to deal with the residual waste.”
Out of the three waste infrastructure projects, the north west’s one has made the most progress. Durkan is aware of opposition to it in his constituency but thinks that this is “based on a lack of knowledge and information, and it is important that there is a public debate and we hear both sides of the argument.”
Durkan recognises that “we have to listen to people’s concerns, particularly if they are around health and safety” but the public needs to know why these projects are being brought forward by councils “and the impact if we do not deal with the waste problem we have.”
Profile: Mark H Durkan
“We have just passed the twentieth anniversary of Derry winning the all-Ireland, which brought back some dormant memories,” Mark H Durkan quips. He’s also a keen Derry fan – “although we have little to shout about at the moment” – and a big Everton fan, as passion he shares with his son, Luke.
He also enjoys running and completed the Derry marathon in June. Mark married Anne in July although he jokes that he hasn’t seen much of her since being appointed a Minister, three days after the wedding. An MLA for Foyle since 2011, he is an accountant by background and represented the Northland area on Derry City Council between 2005 and 2011.
