Lough Foyle: Councillors seek territorial dispute resolution

Lough Foyle stretches from County Londonderry in Northern Ireland to County Donegal in the Republic of Ireland

Derry City and Strabane District council will ask the Belfast and Dublin governments to help settle the territorial dispute over Lough Foyle.

A motion calling on both to "urgently engage with the UK government" over the lough's ownership passed at a meeting on Wednesday.

Lough Foyle is claimed by both Ireland and the UK.

Sinn Féin said the dispute has allowed the "proliferation of unlicensed and unregulated oyster farms" on the lough.

In 2014 there were 2,000 oyster trestles on the lough, Sinn Féin councillor Sandra Duffy, who proposed the motion, said.

The number currently stands at over 60,000, she told councillors.

"We are deeply concerned and frustrated at this issue and the impact it is having on the local marine environment. It is causing untold damage to the marine and local wildlife with the destruction of the lough shore also impacting on migrating birds," she said.

She also said the work of the Loughs Agency - the cross-border body set up to manage Lough Foyle - has been stymied by the dispute.

Sinn Féin say there are now more than 60,000 oyster beds on the lough

Unionist councillors opposed the motion, but it passed by 28 votes to nine.

The council will now write to the Irish government and NI's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs asking the UK government to ask that "urgently engage with the UK government seeking a resolution to the jurisdiction issues surrounding Lough Foyle".

Territorial claims over the ownership of waters between the Republic of Ireland and the UK have ebbed and flowed since the partition of Ireland in 1922.

In 2018 the DUP called on the Irish government to give up its claim on the area.

At the time Sinn Féin dismissed that call as "nonsense".