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Maritime Jurisdiction

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 November 2020

Tuesday, 17 November 2020

Questions (409)

Pádraig MacLochlainn

Question:

409. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will bring the 2013 agreement between Ireland and the UK establishing a single maritime boundary between the exclusive economic zones of the two countries and parts of their continental shelves, before the Houses of the Oireachtas at the earliest opportunity for debate and ratification or rejection by Dáil and Seanad Eireann following the Supreme Court judgment of 27 October 2016 (details supplied). [36740/20]

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Written answers

The judgment referred to by the Deputy concerned fishing in the 0-6 nautical mile zone of the State’s 12-mile territorial sea, while the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is the body of water that stretches from 12 miles out to a distance of 200 miles.

Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea a coastal State has exclusive rights within its EEZ over fishing (although all EU Member States have transferred their competence for conservation and management of sea fisheries to the EU), the production of energy from water and wind, the protection of the marine environment and the conduct of marine scientific research.  A coastal State also enjoys exclusive sovereign rights to the recovery of oil and gas from the seabed beneath the EEZ, although this is governed by the separate legal regime of the continental shelf.

The 2013 Agreement established the agreed 1988 continental shelf boundaries as the boundaries for both the continental shelf and the EEZ above, with some small technical adjustments of the former which were necessary to take account of the 200 nautical mile EEZ limit.

The Agreement was signed on 28 March 2013.  It was ratified on 31 March 2014 and entered into force on the same day. It was then laid before Dáil Éireann in accordance with Article 29.5.1° of Bunreacht na hÉireann and published in the Irish Treaty Series. As the Agreement did not involve a charge on public funds its prior approval by Dáil Éireann in accordance with Article 29.5.2° was not required.

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