International Agreements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-12
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Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo

I thank the Senator for raising this important topic and for his advocacy for Ireland becoming a signatory to the Antarctic Treaty. In 2021 the Taoiseach requested that the Minister for Foreign Affairs re-examine the merits of accession to the Antarctic Treaty System, ATS, in keeping with Government policy in respect of climate change, biodiversity and multilateralism. On foot of this, the Department of Foreign Affairs commissioned an assessment of the full range of legislative, policy and administrative measures that would be necessary for Ireland to participate in the ATS. A report was prepared by Dr. Richard Collins of UCD and delivered to the Department on 12 April 2022. This report provided an overview of the obligations of the ATS, which consists of several different international legal instruments including the 1959 Antarctic Treaty; the 1980 Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources; the 1972 Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals: and the Madrid Protocol on Environmental Protection 1991. Each of these has a different focus and set of requirements on participating states. The report advised that it would be possible to sign up to the ATS with different degrees of commitment. These range from acceding only to the Antarctic Treaty and introducing minimal legislation related to this, to acceding to the treaty, the Madrid protocol and the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources and introducing a range of legislative and administrative tools to ensure compliance with each of these instruments. An interdepartmental group will determine what level of participation is appropriate for Ireland in terms of the parts of the treaty we should accede to. It will also identify the structures and associated resource requirements necessary for such participation.
As the Senator knows, having served as a Minister of State previously, marine environmental matters were a core competence of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage. For this reason, the Government approved the establishment of the interdepartmental group under the direction of that Department to agree next steps regarding Ireland's accession to the ATS. This marine environmental function subsequently transferred the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment on 1 August 2025 and has been delegated to the Minister of State, Deputy Dooley.
As the Senator will be aware, our current focus is on ensuring that threatened species, habitats, and ecosystem services in our own maritime area and the wider north east Atlantic region are protected. With this in mind, the priority has been the drafting of legislation to provide for marine protected areas, MPAs. Officials are currently in process of preparing the general scheme of a Bill to amend the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 to enable us to create more MPAs using the designated maritime area plan process. This work is at an advanced stage and it is intended to bring a general scheme to the Government for approval at the earliest opportunity. Work on the legislation to provide for MPAs complements our continued work on a national and transboundary basis under the marine strategy framework directive.
The Department will also proceed to identify the necessary legislative, administrative and policy measures needed to fully implement the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement. The Department is very much focused on progressing this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:37+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-12