I move the motion put down in the name of Deputy V. Brady:
That Dáil Éireann, in view of the serious menace represented by nuclear power installations which in the event of an accident could cause serious injury and long-lasting contamination in Ireland, requests the Government:
(1) to demand the closure of the Sellafield complex in the light of its deplorable safety record;
(2) to undertake a complete review of plans and arrangements for the protection of the civilian population in the event of fall-out from a nuclear accident, take whatever steps are shown to be necessary by this review, and report back to the Dáil within three months on the current state of these plans.
The disaster at the Soviet nuclear power station at Chernobyl has put the world on notice that all nuclear power, civilian as well as military, represents a threat to the safety of mankind. The lessons of this latest happening in the unfolding drama of growing nuclear danger are as clear as they are ominous.
It must now be obvious to sensible people everywhere that there is a real doubt about our ability to control nuclear power. Atoms for war or atoms for peace; the distinction between them is becoming less and less significant. When a deadly nuclear cloud of radioactivity drifts unpredictably around our globe it does not really matter whether it had civilian or military origins.
While the immediate extent of the fallout and the danger to health arising from the Chernobyl disaster are becoming clear, what is not clear and what we cannot know is the long term effects of this increase in radioactivity levels throughout Europe. The chilling truth is that nobody can tell us. We know that the Irish sea and certain coastal areas have already been affected by emissions and discharges from Sellafield. I have been assured, for instance, by people I trust, that in a town on the coast of Northern Ireland there is an inexplicably high level of leukaemia which is almost certainly related to the Sellafield installation. We also know that these levels have now been added to significantly but with what final outcome we do not know, but we know enough to make us deeply anxious.
It is no longer enough for countries who wish to do so to remain nuclear free zones. Our international environment is now polluted by something that happened in an installation in the Ukraine, even the existence of which would not have been known to more than a handful of people in this country.
Radiation related disease is one of the most insidious enemies that mankind has ever known, particularly because in many cases it cannot be detected or directly and demonstrably related to a particular cause.
I would like to pose the question whether the people who are in charge of nuclear reactors have the faintest idea of what they should do if a melt down of a nuclear core occurs. Is it not the position that all they can do is pray that it does not ever happen, because if it does it will be beyond their control?
There is no safe means of disposing of nuclear waste. The people in charge do not know how to dismantle a nuclear power station when its active life is over, yet there are now dozens of these lethal installations in existence which are capable of wiping out large sections of humanity and more are still being built.
It is, unfortunately, true that the nuclear industry and those who manage it cannot be trusted. There is clearcut evidence from around the world of lies and cover-ups in the name of national security. Accidents, leaks and lapses of security have occurred and have been concealed. The dreadful, inescapable reality is that we are not told the truth about the nuclear threat.
Immediately Chernobyl happened it was announced in Britain that further tighter controls had been imposed at Sellafield, but how could that happen? How, after all, we had been previously told, could there have still been room to further tighten the controls? How could we have been previously assured that the controls were adequate and satisfactory if under the pressure of this latest disaster they can be improved further? This process of deception has gone on too long. Every time there is an accident or an incident we are told that some new monitoring system or some new safety mechanisms are being installed. Will this process of deception continue until the final disastrous explosion occurs? What will they say then? Will those who have lied and deceived us be brought to trial for crimes against humanity? These are questions which the time has now come to ask.
Quite a few days after the extent of the Chernobyl was unlikely to constitute a Minister for Energy said that the Nuclear Energy Board had advised him that the increase in radiation levels following Chernobyl was unlikely to constitute a health hazard. What does that mean? Does it or does it not constitute a health hazard? Why is there this constant fudging, these attempts to conceal and cover up? Even that statement has been contradicted by events today.
The attitude of this Coalition Government to the deadly danger posed to the Irish people by Sellafield has been feeble and ambiguous. They have been in gross neglect of their duty to the Irish people. As the threat to the health and safety of our population became increasingly obvious the Ministers involved have been dragged reluctantly toward a greater but still half-hearted acknowledgement of the reality of the dangers. As usual, this handler-controlled Fine Gael Party endeavour to conceal their own failures and neglect by personal attacks and by accusing those of us who are trying to discharge our duty to the people on this issue of being alarmist. I would like to say to the Government speakers in this debate that they need not bother accusing me or my colleagues of being alarmist on this occasion. We want to sound the alarm and use this debate to persuade, if possible, an aroused Dáil Éireann to act, now that the dangers we spoke about the last time have become a reality.
In February 1984, after a major leak of radioactive waste into the Irish sea to his eternal discredit, the Minister for Energy declared himself "particularly satisfied" with the talks he had with the British Government and with an assurance that such an incident could not happen again. When the now discredited Black report appeared, I called it "a dreadful piece of whitewash", and demanded Sellafield's closure and the imprisonment of those responsible for telling lies. The then Minister for the Environment called this unnecessarily alarmist, and maintained that the level of radioactivity in the Irish Sea was quite safe. A couple of days later when the British Government themselves decided to prosecute the operators of Windscale for unauthorised discharges, the Minister did a somersault and maintained at one and the same time that "a reduction in any contamination will have very beneficial effects for Irish water", and that radioactivity levels did not pose any health risks. At the beginning of 1985, the Minister of State at the Department of Energy, Deputy Eddie Collins, again stated in the Dáil that I was being alarmist and that "there is no danger to people living in Ireland from discharges from Sellafield". Last December the same Minister stated he had no reason to believe that the UK was not carrying out its international obligations on the prevention of pollution.
Only three months later the Minister for Energy stated, in contradiction to all previous assurances, that the safety record at Sellafield had been less than satisfactory, and that he had lost confidence in their safety procedures. Yet on 12 March last, when it came to a Dáil vote, the Government voted down our call for the closure of Sellafield.
I am indebted to a British newspaper, The Guardian, for the following information on 5 May about the way the German authorities regard Sellafield:
The state government in Munich has considered it necessary to start a publicity campaign in local newspapers explaining that "Sellafield could not happen here".
It is not up to the Bavarian government to meddle with internal British affairs, but it is our duty to tell our people that the safety of Sellafield, which is more than 30 years old, cannot be compared with that of the new plant at Wackersdorf. Sellafield, in its present condition, could not operate in West Germany, the advertisement says.
What a startling contrast with the complacent attitude of this Coalition Government. Their record of weak and contradictory statements have made this Irish Government ineffective and without any real influence in protecting the Irish people from the menace of Sellafield.
The present position of the Government is still unsatisfactory, even though they have recently been forced by the facts to abandon their previous position of telling the people that there is nothing to worry about. Their response is now the very restricted one of calling for Community inspection.
Fianna Fáil are urging the Government to discard their present stance of pretending to deal with the menace of Sellafield by looking for European inspection. That is not an adequate response. It appears to us to be taking the easy way out and trying to sidetrack it and avoiding confronting Britain directly on the issue.
Does the Minister for Energy realise that the proposal for a Euratom safety inspection force may well require amendment of the Euratom Treaty? At present, the Treaty provides only for safeguards inspectors, which is a different thing altogether, concerned with ensuring that nuclear materials are not diverted from peaceful to military uses, particularly in non-nuclear weapons countries. The Euratom inspectors are concerned only with accounting for materials such as uranium and plutonium and have no functions in relation to safety.
But, in any case, it is no use tinkering with cosmetic proposals for Euratom inspectors or declaring oneself satisfied with reassurances that originate from the nuclear industry. Nothing less is required than a complete reappraisal of nuclear power by the international community. Ireland, as a member of relevant international bodies, should play an active part in initiating that reappraisal.
The Minister of State at the Department of Energy adopts the pathetic position of claiming that he cannot demand the closure of Sellafield because it will not be conceded. We cannot accept that subservient attitude. How can he know that his demand will not be conceded until he makes it and especially if he makes it with the full public support of Dáil Éireann? It is his duty to keep on calling insistently for the closure of this deadly menace across the Irish Sea. He must demand the closure of this demonstrably dangerous installation until such time as he succeeds, which we are demanding in this motion. This is the second time we have made such a demand. The last time we put down this motion we knew we were right, and the events since then have totally and completely confirmed that we were right in demanding that Sellafield should be closed and refusing to accept anything else. I cannot understand why the Government still do not accept that position. Their amendment agrees with practically everything we are saying and suggesting except for the crucial demand to close this dangerous, menacing installation.
Sellafield is a bilateral issue between the British and Irish Government which should be pursued consistently as such. Our case this evening is that if the Government will not even now after Chernobyl do their duty, Dáil Éireann, as a national Parliament, must give a lead and do it for them.
What was the state of preparedness here when this latest disaster happened? Did we have in Ireland any worthwhile contingency plans to deal with nuclear fall-out? Had we even a system in place for measuring the level of fall-out on a countrywide, comprehensive basis? Were the Nuclear Energy Board continually monitoring the level of radioactivity in the air, water and soil so that a sudden rise could be detected from our own domestic sources, something in fact required by the Euratom Treaty? All the evidence is that we had none of these things.
There was no preparation whatever for the eventuality of a major radioactive fall-out despite the fact that the possibility of such a fall-out from Sellafield had been there for years and even though the Government are apparently not prepared to offend the British Government by demanding the closure of Sellafield and were not even prepared to take measures here to protect the people in the event of the same thing happening in Sellafield as happened in Chernobyl. This will have to be probed very deeply. There was an inexcusable delay in taking any action, even after the announcement of the Chernobyl disaster. There was a hurriedly assembled ad hoc interdepartmental committee coming together, late in the day, and the very fact that that unwieldy committee assembled in that scrambled fashion proves conclusively that there was no Government plan here to deal with the situation now confronting us and which could have confronted us at any time during the last five or six months or indeed over the last ten or 15 years.
The Nuclear Energy Board here are little better than a public relations front for the nuclear industry. Like the Government, they have been reluctantly forced by the increasing seriousness of the situation into slightly more critical statements, but all always after an event which cannot be denied and then only to the minimum extent they think they can get away with, never publishing these statistics of their accounts but always saying that there was nothing to worry about. We know now that all along there was something to worry about.
The Nuclear Energy Board was set up in late 1973 by Deputy Peter Barry, when he was Minister for Transport and Power, to act as the regulatory agency for an Irish nuclear plant which it was then intended to build. What we need is a radiological protection institute which will have statutory responsibility for protecting the population against the menace of nuclear fall-out, which will publish full and reliable statistics, and which will speak out fearlessly and independently when necessary.
We are satisfied that the Nuclear Energy Board no longer fulfils any useful function because in our view — we are determined about this — there never will be a nuclear reactor built here. Therefore, there never will be any need for any regulatory agency to supervise it. What we need, and this has become increasingly obvious, is an impartial institution which will have the statutory responsibility placed on it by the House to oversee the whole area of radiation. It should take whatever action is necessary, do the monitoring that is necessary and issue the warnings that may be necessary to protect the interests of the Irish people.
The whole area must be reviewed and decisions taken about the extent that dangers can be anticipated and provided for. I should like to make another reasonably important point in regard to this. These recent experiences have shown also that the fatalist approach which claims that because there is nothing we can do if the holocaust happens we need not bother doing anything, cannot be sustained. It is now clear that there can be situations short of Armageddon which can be provided against and contingency plans should be ready to be put into effect as soon as particular radiation thresholds are reached.
We need to have a co-ordinated plan involving a new radiological protection institute, Civil Defence, the Meterological Service, the universities, the local authorities and relevant Government Departments. That plan should have been in place long ago but even now we want the Government to take immediate steps to devise it and take all the necessary action it demands.
On the international side, Ireland should approach other countries which, like us, have no nuclear installations or interests and sound them out on the possibility of convening an international conference of all the countries not engaged in nuclear power production so that they can formulate their position and their demands as countries not engaged in this business of producing nuclear energy.
As the Italian Foreign Minister, Signor Andriotti, has pointed out, national sovereignty is absolutely irrelevant when considering disasters of the scale of Chernobyl. The accident there has shown that countries with or without nuclear power of their own have an entirely legitimate interest in dangerous and potentially lethal nuclear activities carried out by their neighbours. The German Foreign Minister, Herr Genscher, has already asked that all plants similar to the Chernobyl plant in the Soviet Union be closed down. Today there is a widespread recognition that nuclear installations in any one country are not simply a matter for that country alone but are the legitimate concern of all countries but particularly the neighbouring countries. Certainly, it is axiomatic and basic that the plant at Sellafield is a perfectly legitimate concern to the Irish people and the Irish Government. We claim, and rightly, that we have as much say, and are entitled to as much say in the management of that plant as the British Government and the British people. We also claim that everything we know about it demands that steps be taken immediately to effect its ultimate closedown. Does it not frighten the Minister for Energy, and the Government, that the German Government would use Sellafield as an example in their advertisements of what should not be done in the nuclear industry? They say that as a plant that is 30 years old it would not be tolerated in Germany but our Government are prepared to tolerate it. Our Government are not prepared to stand up and protest to the British Government about it.
At the very minimum Ireland should call for an emergency plenary conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, at which all countries are represented, to discuss the implications and consequences of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. There are many things that we should be canvassing international support for at this stage, such as a system whereby, all countries engaging in nuclear power programmes, whether civil or military, promptly notify their neighbours immediately an accident involving the release of radiation has occurred. The slowness of the Soviet Union in informing its neighbours about the accident was reprehensible and it must be said that the nuclear industry in Britain, and other Western countries, is also extremely secretive and loath to reveal details about accidents.
We must offer our sympathy to the Russian people on the accident and the deaths and injuries that have occurred but we must also be very critical of the way they handled the effects of that accident in so far as the rest of Europe, particularly their neighbours, are concerned. We should be very active in the international arena in demanding that more openness and frankness be practised in this area.
In my view there is now an unanswerable case for an international moratorium on the construction of nuclear power stations and other facilities such as reprocessing plants.
The Chernobyl disaster will have consequences for decades and possibly generations to come. The consequences for Ireland of a similar accident at Sellafield or other nuclear power stations on the west coast of Britain do not bear thinking about. It is clear that no invention, least of all a complex structure such as a nuclear power station, can be regarded as absolutely safe. The propaganda about well-managed, safe reactors has now been shown finally to be a dangerously misleading palliative.
The Soviet Minister for Energy said only a couple of months ago about Chernobyl: "The odds of a meltdown are one in 10,000 years. The plants have safe and reliable controls that are protected from any breakdown... The environment is also securely protected. Hermetically sealed buildings, closed cycles for technological processes with radioactive agents, and systems for purification... Even if the incredible should happen, the automatic control and safety systems would shut down the reactor in a matter of minutes".
The incredible occurred after two months not 10,000 years. We should compare that statement to the official one issued after the Windscale accident in Britain in 1957. There is a great deal of similarity about what those authorities say about their nuclear situations. The British said about that accident: "It is untrue...that a large amount of radioactivity was released; the amount released was not hazardous to the public and what there was was carried out to sea". Out to sea, of course, meant across to Ireland. The fall-out from the Chernobyl accident which reached Ireland from 1,500 miles away must surely vindicate the case made by Dr. Patricia Sheehan and Professor Irene Hillery linking the incidence of Down's Syndrome babies among former school girls in Dundalk to the nuclear accident at Windscale in 1957. Is it not evident from the Chernobyl accident that the treatment of the 1957 Windscale accident by nuclear apologists here and in Britain has been very superficial, if not downright misleading? The idea that the east coast of Ireland somehow escaped altogether from a serious increase in radiation levals as a result of the 1957 accident at Windscale can now be clearly seen for the absurdity it is.
I have been appalled by the totally inadequate statement issued by the seven leaders of the developed industrial world at their meeting in Tokyo about this critical world situation now confronting us. All they could bring themselves to do was to call for better reporting of accidents and emergencies. One might at the very least have expected that they would call for a worldwide review of the nuclear industry emphasising the need for greater safety. Far from doing anything of that nature, there is an apparent acceptance by those leaders of the fact that more accidents are going to occur. They are not apparently concerned about preventing the accidents but only that they should be reported when they do occur. After that statement one must despairingly ask: is there no one to stand up for humanity, no one to defend the health and safety of ordinary people around the world?
Ireland must have a clear, independent international stance on this vital life and death issue. We must not be compromised for any reason. We must stand out against the proliferation of nuclear power in whatever form it may take. We must oppose any further expansion, civil or military, and seek the closure of facilities such as Sellafield which pose the most immediate threat to our safety.
We must demand in the short term the imposition of stronger mandatory international safety controls and the inspection of all nuclear reactors until such time as the only really safe course of action can finally begin internationally. There are good, sound international examples for us to follow — Sweden and Austria for example, both of whom have renounced nuclear power.
The world does not need nuclear power. It is now apparent that there are other energy resources available which will meet world energy needs for many centuries to come. It may not now be five minutes to midnight but it is certainly late in the day. Unless action is taken very soon it is difficult to see how further major nuclear catastrophes can be avoided in the next few decades. The time for deceptive reassurances and complacency is over. Countries like Ireland, with no vested interest in nuclear power, must act as best they can in the interest of the safety if not the very survival of mankind. I believe that is a solemn duty placed on this country, particularly on us, because we have no nuclear interests and because we have a respected position of neutrality around the world. From that respected position of neutrality I believe we can do a great deal in this area. This nuclear menace is like no other because we do not fully understand it and we are helpless before it. When it arrives there is nowhere to hide and very little we can do.
The Chernobyl accident must be accepted by all as a deadly serious warning of where our modern world is heading. It is likely that countries over which this particular nuclear cloud has passed will experience deaths, disease and genetic malformations, some of which will manifest themselves many years from now. Why should we be compelled to live under this shadow? Sellafield is the immediate issue, but we must now confront the whole issue of nuclear power as such. Nothing else has the ultimate disastrous potential of a single serious nuclear accident. I do not want to suggest that those governments who support a nuclear industry in their own countries do not seek what is right for their people, but I do honestly believe they are wrong in their judgment in identifying where the good of their people really lies.
I would like to give the House a quotation from very unlikely source. These are not the words of some timid pacifist or misguided environmentalist but a sombre message from a leader whose macho credentials are as good as any of those bestriding the world stage today. It was Winston Churchill who said:
The stone age may return on the gleaming wings of science and what might now shower immeasurable blessings upon mankind may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say, time may be short!
Once again I am asking Deputies on all sides of the House to support this motion.
I should like Deputies to fully understand what is happening in the world around us today, why our people are so full of fear and apprehension at present. Many of the things that were good, wholesome and beneficial for us have turned sour. We all know that our parents used to advise us, as children, to go out and get some fresh air, wash in the rain — because it was good for us — bathe in the sea, to eat fresh vegetables, drink milk. These were the good things of life. Today that is no longer the case. All of those things now in different parts of Europe and here represent potential hazards to health. Are we losing our senses that we tolerate, without protest, this devastation of our natural environment, this turning upsidedown of our daily lives and the things that matter to us in our daily lives?
Deputies must now be aware — if they were not aware when we last discussed this matter — that there is deep anxiety widespread throughout the country about the implications of a Chernobyl-type disaster for this country. People have seen pictures of what has been happening in Poland — children queueing up at hospitals to get some form of antidote. They now learn that health warnings have been issued in Scotland nearby. They know that radioactivity from Chernobyl has reached this country. Indeed, this afternoon we learned that a researcher in UCD has discovered in a sample of milk that there is a level of radiation which is dangerous and represents a serious threat to health if it is repeated in other samples. People know that Sellafield represents a serious risk to their health and safety.
I believe they are looking to Dáil Eireann this evening, and we must respond. It is our responsibility to take action of a positive nature which will help allay their fears and anxieties. If Dáil Éireann were to pass this motion and the Government, armed with that declaration of national support, were to raise this matter to inter-governmental level, as a matter of national security, then I believe the British Government would have no alternative but to respond.
We are urging the Government and the Minister for Energy, in the best interests of our people, to take action now, not to delay any longer. As I have said, perhaps it is not five minutes to midnight but it is getting very near it. First, we want the Government to directly confront the British Government on Sellafield and to demand its closure. Second, to take a number of initiatives in the international area which would be directed toward dealing with the growing global menace of nuclear power, opposing any further expansion and the imposition of mandatory international safety controls and inspection. Third, we want the Government to abolish this useless Nuclear Energy Board, replacing it with a new radiological protection institution with greatly revised powers and functions. Fourth, and very urgently, we ask the Government to put in place a comprehensive system involving all the appropriate agencies and Departments which would be designed to protect our population to the greatest possible extent from the effects of a nuclear fall-out.
The recent disaster has shown a very serious gap in our affairs in that regard. The Government must now move very quickly to put that new type of system in place. What we are seeking from the Government at this time we are seeking for the vital best interests of the Irish people. We see these things as necessary to protect the safety and welfare of our people at this stage. Above all, we want positive action on Sellafield. That is the most important thing that the Government can and should do immediately to protect the Irish people from this nuclear menace which is now threatening the population in so many parts of the world.
I am very disappointed that the Government once again have put down a sidetracking amendment to our motion. Their amendment agrees with practically everything we are saying in our motion, with the exception of the closure of Sellafield. I ask again for support for our motion from all sides of the House. It is necessary in the public interest and I particularly emphasise the crucial central signifance of the closure of Sellafield in the interests of the future health and safety of the Irish people.
