To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for an update on his Department’s bid for £100m investment in key infrastructure at Kilkeel, Ardglass and Portavogie Harbours.

My Department has received approval to incur expenditure to take the Fishery Harbour Development Programme to the next stage. This involves the procurement of consultants to carry out work including detailed environmental and technical studies on at least two of the harbour proposals. These studies will inform later Outline Business Cases and planning and marine consents necessary to progress the Programme further. Work has commenced on procurement and I expect the Department will be in a position to make appointments in the second half of this year. Environmental and technical studies could take up to 12 months to complete thereafter.

I have discussed our plans and flagged the need for additional funding for NI fishery harbours with the UK Fisheries Minister so that this can be taken into account in future rounds of UK level fisheries support. The plans have also been raised with the Strategic Investment Board and I believe that fishery harbour development should fit within the objectives of the draft Investment Strategy 2050.