Ireland has never accepted the UK’s claim to the whole of Lough Foyle, Minister of State for Justice David Stanton told the Seanad.

He said uncertainty concerning the extent to which each side exercised jurisdiction within Lough Foyle has created practical difficulties for conducting a number of activities there.

This included a difficulty in creating a system for the licensing of aquaculture by the Loughs Agency in accordance with the intentions of the two governments under the 1999 agreement establishing the North-South implementation bodies.

“The Government wishes to see the agency working to its full potential, which is in the interests of everyone on this island,’’ said Mr Stanton.

He said following discussions in 2011, both governments agreed to seek to address and resolve jurisdictional issues relating to Lough Foyle and Carlingford Lough. Since then meetings had taken place at official level between the foreign and commonwealth office and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Different actors

“The issues in question are complex and involve a range of different actors, including the crown estates.’’

Mr Stanton was replying to Sinn Féin Senator Padraig Mac Lochlainn, who said Northern Secretary James Brokenshire, in reply to a parliamentary question, had recently asserted the whole of Lough Foyle was within the UK.

“Eighteen years after the Good Friday Agreement it is unacceptable for language that is so clearly arrogant and provocative to be used,’’ said Mr Mac Lochlainn.

He said it flew in the face of the establishment of the agency and the potential of Lough Foyle and Carlingford Lough. “Carlingford’s status has been resolved and there is a North-South division, but why has it taken all these years to resolve how we share Lough Foyle?’’