International Agreements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-12
============================================================

Alan Dillon (FG), Mayo

I thank the Senator again for raising these important matters and for all of his previous work as Minister of State in the Department. Given the interconnected nature of the world's oceans in the context of marine environmental policy, we need to continue at a national level to ensure that we develop it as a national priority. It is also important in the context of climate change, ocean currents, migration of species and the broader ocean ecosystem that there be a national, regional and global approach. We must remain connected to other requirements and ensure they are done in a more managed and sustainable way. We have seen, most recently, that threats to the unique environment of Antarctic have a global impact. Participation in the ATS will complement existing work. We ratified the Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction agreement in September 2025, following Dáil approval. As I said earlier, we are prioritising work on the MPA legislation and the associated workaround identifying species, habitats and ecosystems. Once that work is sufficiently advanced, we will free up resources in other areas within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on the ATS.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

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