Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will be very familiar with the issue of jurisdiction over Lough Foyle. In November 2016, the then British Secretary of State, Mr. James Brokenshire, declared that the whole of Lough Foyle was within the UK.

That has always historically been rejected, not just by the Irish Government, but by the Irish people. The facts are that the British Government and the Crown Estate claim jurisdiction over all of Lough Foyle. One of the outworkings of the failure to resolve this issue is that we now have large numbers of unregulated oyster trestles along the western shore of Lough Foyle. Can we think of anywhere else around the coast of this State where we would tolerate a huge proliferation of aquaculture that is unregulated? Because of the failure to resolve the jurisdiction issues, we are left with this scenario.

I appeal to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and to the Minister, Deputy Charlie McConalogue, to engage urgently with the British Government to draft joint legislation. These are disputed waters and we accept that they are disputed. However, we need to have joint legislation that gives bodies like the Loughs Agency increased powers to regulate aquaculture. It goes further than that, however. We now have the issue of Brexit, the withdrawal from the London fisheries agreement of the British Government and the fact access to their waters is front and centre of these trade negotiations. We are left with a sense that the failure to resolve this issue puts the fishing community in the Inishowen peninsula in serious peril. We need to get clarity from the British Government on its intentions, particularly in regard to the fishing waters in Lough Foyle and north of our island. I was speaking to a very prominent representative of the fishing industry in Ireland just this morning and his words were that the biggest threat to the industry in 100 years is Brexit. I ask for reassurance from the Minister on what he is doing about that issue and what he is doing to resolve the huge problems around Lough Foyle.

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