Alliance hit out at SDLP for asking 'what causes rain' - after MLA asks minister to explain recent wet weather
Asking questions about what causes rain isn’t accountability and is a waste of public money, the Alliance Party has said – after an SDLP MLA lodged an urgent question to the environment minister about recent wet weather.
Justin McNulty has asked Andrew Muir whether his department has assessed the reason behind the weeks of rainfall affecting Northern Ireland.
UK rainfall so far this winter has been around 9% above the long-term average for the whole of winter – but nowhere near record-breaking territory, according to the Met Office.
The province experienced its wettest January in 149 years, the second wettest on record, with southern England also hit hard.
The forecasters say the rainfall has been “heavily influenced by natural variability and atmospheric patterns” – but climate change “provides important context”.
Mr McNulty’s question to the Alliance DAERA minister – who is in charge of environmental matters – asks whether his department “has made any assessment of the causes of the continuous rainfall we have been experiencing in 2026”.
The minister is yet to respond to the query, submitted on Thursday, but an Alliance Party spokesperson has slammed the opposition party over its use of public funds.
“Every parliamentary question costs time and public resources. Using that to ask what causes rain isn’t accountability, it’s a waste of both.
“The DAERA Minister is rightly focussed on tackling climate change which is causing more frequent extreme weather with serious consequences for our communities”.
The Met Office has said a series of Atlantic low-pressure systems brought repeated rounds of wet and windy weather – following above-average rainfall in both November and December, meaning the ground was already sensitive to rainfall.
It has also said that “climate change is associated with a trend towards wetter winters in the UK”.
“A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, approximately 7% more for every degree Celsius of warming. This means that when it does rain, downpours can be heavier and more intense. This characteristic is already being observed in the UK and globally, with rainfall totals on the wettest days increasing over recent decades”, according to the organisation’s website.
Mr McNulty was suspended from the SDLP for sixth months in 2024. after he left the Assembly early to attend a match involving the Laois GAA team which he manages. The Newry and Armagh MLA travelled to the fixture by helicopter from Stormont.