Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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938. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of the waters adjacent to Rockall; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20235/20]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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I am advised by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade that the position is as follows.

The exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is the body of water that stretches from 12 nautical miles offshore out to a distance of 200 miles. The seabed beneath the EEZ is the continental shelf.

Largely due to efforts made by Ireland throughout the 1970s, international law is now clear that uninhabitable rocks such as Rockall have no entitlement to a continental shelf or an EEZ and so, sovereignty over such a rock is irrelevant for the purposes of establishing boundaries between continental shelves and EEZs of neighbouring States.  Sovereignty, and whether such a rock has a 12-mile territorial sea, are separate issues that do not arise in establishing boundaries between continental shelves and EEZs.

The United Kingdom claims sovereignty over Rockall and thus a twelve mile territorial sea around it.  The United Kingdom first made its claim of sovereignty to Rockall in 1955 and sought to incorporate it as part of the UK in its domestic law by virtue of the Island of Rockall Act 1972.

The Irish Government does not accept the UK’s claim to sovereignty over Rockall, which it regards as forming part of the UK’s exclusive economic zone.  Accordingly, up until the UK's departure from the EU, it was part of European Union waters under the Common Fisheries Policy, to which the principle of equal access for the vessels of all EU Member States applied and continues to apply during the transition period.