PARTS of Co Donegal are still British, it has been confirmed.
The Crown Estate, the agency which manages British Government property, is insisting that it owns the Donegal side of Lough Foyle – right up to the high tide mark.
And the organisation is threatening legal action if Donegal County Council goes ahead with plans to put a 300-metre sewage outflow pipe into the lough.
So that means a 23-year battle between the council and local residents over the sewage pipe could be at an end – and could force the council to back to a proposal from 18 years ago to locate the sewage treatment plant and pipe beside the Atlantic.
Garda sources have also confirmed that officers stationed in Inishowen are warned that their jurisdiction ends at the foreshore.
Enda Craig from the Campaign for a Clean Estuary group which opposes the outflow pipe told Donegal Daily: “People in Moville and Greencastle have known about this territorial claim for years.
“It’s not something that is a big issue really, except of course that the claim will prevent the sewage pipe proposals from going ahead and that is very good news for everyone.
“We always felt that pumping treated sewage into the Lough Foyle estuary would be an environmental disaster; especially as there is provision for untreated sewage to go in during flooding periods.”
The group recently spent four days in court challenging a decision by planners to give the scheme the go-ahead – agains the advice of its own officials.
But now the Crown Estate has told the Irish government at meetings that it still owns the entire lough, the seabed and the foreshore on the Donegal side of the Border.
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