Under proposed legislation polluters of rivers will have to pay the costs of repairing damage and restoring them, a Stormont committee has been told.
The Culture, Arts and Leisure Minister, Mr Michael McGimpsey, told his Assembly scrutiny committee that under the Executive's new Fisheries (Amendment) Bill polluters would not merely be required to restock fish. At present the Fisheries Conservancy Board is limited in recovering the costs of restocking fish kills in a pollution incident.