{"id":211315,"date":"2025-12-02T12:12:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/211315\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T12:12:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T12:12:27","slug":"irish-and-british-governments-negotiating-rockall-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/211315\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish and British Governments negotiating Rockall claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish and British governments are in \u201cregular contact\u201d negotiating the territorial sea around Rockall, junior minister Timmy Dooley has confirmed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dooley \u2013 who is Minister of State responsible for fisheries and the marine \u2013 was asked in a parliamentary question about Government efforts to reinstate Irish fishermen\u2019s access to their \u201ctraditional fishing grounds\u201d at Rockall.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in TD P\u00e1draig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister \u201cif he will seek to go to international mediation or arbitration to resolve this long-running injustice\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister replied that the Government rejects Britain\u2019s sovereign claim on the landmass.<\/p>\n

\u201cRockall is a small, uninhabitable rock located approximately 160 nautical miles west of the Scottish islands of St. Kilda, and 230 nautical miles to the north-west of Donegal,\u201d Dooley said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Deputy is aware, Ireland has not sought to claim sovereignty over Rockall. The UK claimed sovereignty over Rockall in 1955 and sought to formally annex it as part of Scotland under its 1972 Island of Rockall Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe consistent position of successive Irish Governments is that Ireland does not recognise Britain\u2019s claim of sovereignty over Rockall. Accordingly, Ireland does not accept that a 12 nautical mile (22km) territorial sea exists around Rockall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dooley explained that Ireland\u2019s position historically is that an uninhabitable island cannot extend territorial waters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIreland\u2019s long-held view is that a rock incapable of sustaining human habitation does not allow for the creation of a territorial sea,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, the agreement under the TCA relating to access to the UK 12-200 mile zone should apply inside the 12 nautical mile zone around Rockall.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe understand that the UK takes a different view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Traditionally, Irish vessels have fished for haddock, which is subject to a quota limit, and squid, which is not subject to a quota limit, in the waters around Rockall. Haddock may be caught both within and outside 12 nautical miles of Rockall, but squid is caught within 6 nautical miles of Rockall. Other stocks caught in the waters around Rockall, both within the 12 miles area and outside, are monkfish and megrim.<\/p>\n

Dooley said that securing an agreement regarding this issue \u201cremains an important issue for the Government,\u201d and that regular negotiations are ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe matter has been raised previously with the First Minister of Scotland, and the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government continues to be in regular contact with the relevant Scottish and UK authorities on Rockall and there is agreement that we will continue to work together to seek a resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough this engagement, the Government is seeking to address the issues involved, reflecting the long-standing fisheries patterns in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am committed to finding a way forward and I will continue to work closely with the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Helen McEntee T.D., on this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until 1955, Rockall was treated as terra nullius \u2014 territory without an acknowledged owner. That year, driven by Cold War security considerations, the United Kingdom asserted ownership on 18 September. Two Royal Marines and a civilian naturalist landed on the rock, hoisted the Union flag, and fixed a plaque into the surface. The British authorities of the period feared that, if left unclaimed, the outcrop might be used by Soviet operatives to monitor the planned missile range on South Uist.<\/p>\n

Ireland has never sought sovereignty over the islet itself but maintains that the British claim has no legal standing. Denmark, representing Faroese interests, and Iceland have also put forward claims relating to the surrounding seabed.<\/p>\n

While the islet itself is of little direct value in terms of natural resources, the surrounding nautical area is home to fish, and there is speculation that the Atlantic sea floor around it could have oil and gas beneath the seabed, though this has never been discovered.<\/p>\n

In 2021, crew from a Marine Scotland patrol vessel boarded an Irish fishing boat and instructed it to vacate Rockall\u2019s 12-nautical-mile zone.<\/p>\n

Last year, the Irish and Scottish governments jointly suggested restoring access for Irish vessels to those waters, but the plan was subsequently blocked by the then British Foreign Secretary, David Cameron.<\/p>\n

The deal, hammered out over several years of talks between Irish and Scottish officials, would have opened the waters within 12 nautical miles of Rockall to Irish boats, permitting them to catch species such as monkfish, squid and haddock again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish and British governments are in \u201cregular contact\u201d negotiating the territorial sea around Rockall, junior minister Timmy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4391,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,10924,5,115557,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-211315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-ben-scallan","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-negotiate","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-rockall","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115649914123425531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}