Toxic lake a symbol of Northern Irish decay

It is a grim milestone for Northern Ireland that some of its problems are now visible from space. A vast bloom of blue-green algae is choking Lough Neagh, which supplies 40% of Northern Ireland's drinking water, owing to farm slurry, human sewage discharges and other management blunders.

- Rory Carroll

The poisoning of the biggest lake in Britain and Ireland is bad enough, but it has become a symbol of wider dysfunction in Northern Ireland. The Stormont executive and assembly have been mothballed for 20 months, leaving a discredited civil service and unpopular secretary of state, Chris Heaton-Harris, to run the region on a form of autopilot. Hospital waiting lists are the worst in the UK and schools, roads and housing are decaying, with worse feared given what has been termed a "punishment" budget. The police service is in crisis.

"There's an end-of-days feel to Northern Ireland," Sam McBride, the Northern Ireland editor of the Belfast Telegraph, wrote in a recent column. "A sort of half-hearted anarchy pervades. There are still laws, police and regulatory bodies. The streets aren't filled with looters. But so much of what an advanced democratic society takes for granted is crumbling."