Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will not get into that at the moment. I understand that the situation is that this issue was not raised with First Minister Sturgeon at the recent meeting and at the time the Taoiseach said that it was decided not to escalate the matter. In addition to that, in response to a parliamentary question last week, the Tánaiste said that the issue of Rockall was directly raised with him as late as 2018 and that it had been flagged with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine since April 2017, which is quite a while ago for this issue to have been raised. It seems like an issue that should have been building over a period of time and one would expect that the importance of the Rockall issue for Irish fishing communities in particular would be very much to the fore of that agenda.

It was surely a mistake that it was not raised with First Minister Sturgeon. Has the Taoiseach spoken with First Minister Sturgeon about the matter subsequently in the past fortnight? If not, will he do so in the coming days? It is very important and it strikes me that as an important first step to try to rectify this matter the interests of Irish fishermen and their families have to be put front and centre. Irish fishing vessels have used the waters around Rockall for decades, probably even for centuries at this stage, and it is a vital fishing ground, particularly for fishermen off the north-west coast. It is clearly a situation where we possibly have issues of internal politics in Scotland taking precedence over issues that are vitally important to Irish fishing families.

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