I should like to thank the Chair for giving me permission to raise this serious matter on the Adjournment. We are all aware of the announcement yesterday by the British Government that they have appointed 12 inspectors to carry out a special investigation of the Sellafield plant and that the result of their findings will be made public. I should like to give a very qualified welcome to this announcement which came about following persistent pressure by the Irish Government over the past two years. This belated recognition by the British Government that a serious problem exists at Sellafield comes in the wake of four accidents at the plant in the past 25 days. However, this recognition has come following repeated denials by the management of British Nuclear Fuels that the incidence of leakages was serious. In fact, they issued a number of conflicting statements in the wake of the second last incident. On that occasion we were told there was very little contamination but subsequently there was an admission that not only was there an emission into the atmosphere of radioactive gas but that a number of workers at the plant had been contaminated.
I do not intend to delay the time of the House by going through the history of the plant which is well documented. I might add that the history of the plant is one of inefficiencies and mismanagement by the management of the plant. It is a history of coverups by the British Government. It was only following persistent and dogged efforts by a small number of individuals here and in Britain to uncover the truth, that the full extent of the problem has come to light.
In May 1984 I received an invitation from British Nuclear Fuels to go to the plant and I led an all party delegation to that plant. We spent a portion of the first day in conversation with the senior management of the plant and the second day at the plant. We left there convinced that a major problem existed which would not go away. In fact, I can recall saying at the time that Sellafield was an ecological time bomb. I am more convinced of that now. Despite a very slick public relations exercise by the Sellafield management they failed to answer vital questions in relation to the disposal of nuclear waste, solid and liquid. We asked them what they planned to do with the high level of radioactive waste being stored at the plant, but they had no answer for us. The disposal of high level solid radioactive waste is a major political problem in Britain at present and the attitude of authorities is to find means and ways of disposing of it either at sea or abroad. That is not a solution.
On the occasion of our visit we asked for assurances that the management of the plant would be in a position to reduce the discharge of radioactive liquid waste from the plant into the Irish Sea, but we got no such assurances. In fact, nobody has given those assurances to date. The authorities have made statements that they will reduce the discharge of liquid waste to near zero but, in my opinion, that is still unacceptable. The technology is there. All that is required is the will and the financial investment to reduce radioactive liquid discharge to zero.
One of Britain's major revenue earners at present is one of our major environmental headaches. It is totally unacceptable that we should be faced with an environmental problem from a source that is a major revenue earner for the British Government and nation. That is unacceptable and we should take the appropriate strong stand on this issue.
One of the most damning disclosures from the long sad episode of Sellafield emerged yesterday on an ITV news bulletin. It was to the effect that plant management over the past number of years have been making private financial settlements with families of cancer victims who had previously worked in the plant. That is a most damning disclosure and one that must be assessed now. The fact that private financial settlements were being made in recent years is surely an admission that there is something seriously wrong with the Sellafield plant.
The Irish Government must do a number of things in regard to this plant. I am not going to do the obvious thing tonight and call for the immediate closure of the plant. That is unrealistic at present and it would be totally dishonest to say otherwise. The time for us to suggest a closure of the plant was four or five years ago before Britain initiated a major construction investment programme. That work has gone on over the past three or four years and the Government have invested hundreds of millions of pounds in a thermal oxide resin processing plant there. I have no doubt that Britain would be very reluctant to reverse its policies in regard to nuclear reprocessing.
The realistic thing the Irish Government can do at present is to insist on having a permanent Irish Government official on site in Sellafield at all times. I can only give yesterday's announcement a very qualified welcome because the self-policing by the British Government of one of their own plants is unacceptable to me and must be unacceptable to an Irish Government. If that is so, we must press at EC level for a European inspection force to investigate the safety procedures and the technical procedures at Sellafield.
According to a report in The Irish Times today, Mrs. Thatcher is not in agreement with this proposal, but we must insist on an EC involvement in the whole process there. We should insist on an EC inspection force looking at the safety and technical procedures at Sellafield. We must also insist that the British Government introduce the techniques to reduce the level of the radioactive liquid discharge into the Irish sea to zero. Nothing less than that should be accepted by the Irish Government. We should insist that a financial investment is made by the British to reduce liquid discharges into the Irish sea to zero.
It is unrealistic to demand an immediate closure of the plant unless we can produce the scientific and technical evidence to prove that Sellafield is damaging our environment and the health of our population. I hope the Department of Health will issue their findings on the investigation that has been going on for many months into the health implications for our population along the east coast. I hope those findings will be made public in the near future. We must also step up our scientific investigation of the consequences for Ireland. It is only with hard scientific, technical evidence that we can bring about in time a closure of this plant in conjunction with our EC partners. It will have to be a full EC effort. Therefore, all the European countries must unite in a determined effort to bring about the closure of this most dangerous plant on foot of detailed scientific evidence.
As I said earlier, this problem is an accumulative ecological time bomb which will not go away unless dealt with in a serious manner. For many years I have put forward the opinion here that our attitude to this whole problem and our stand in relation to Britain are seriously and badly compromised by our own failure for decades to deal with the whole question of the disposal of chemical and toxic waste. That question is very relevant. We are dependent on Britain to take some of our chemical and toxic waste, so how can we put the boot in with them? We depend on them to dispose of some of our lethal industrial waste. What is urgent is that we develop a policy whereby we can dispose of our own industrial waste.
The allegations made the other day by Opposition spokespersons that the Government have been negligent in their attitude to this whole issue falls flat when the records show clearly that no approaches or protests were made in any serious way to the British Government until the present administration came to office. It was only then that we became involved and signed the Paris Convention in relation to the disposal of nuclear waste. It was only then, too, that we took an active part on a European level in relation to this whole problem. Therefore, we must put our own house in order in the matter of industrial and chemical waste before we can go forward totally uncompromised in our attitude to Britain.
Can the Taoiseach assure the House that this matter is being treated seriously by the British Prime Minister and that in the very near future we will be taking up the issue at the most senior level within the EC? I await with interest his reply.
