Vol. 415 No. 8
212 Mr. Hogan asked the Minister for energy if, in view of an agreement reached by member states in December 1989, to introduce Community inspection of nuclear installations, he will outline the number of inspections that have been carried out at Sellafield; and if he will make a statement on the safety or otherwise of this nuclear installation.
The Deputy is referring here to the decision of the EC Commission acting on its own responsibility, to resume inspections of monitoring facilities in member states after a lapse of twenty years. These inspections are provided for under Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty and are intended to cover all facilities established by member states to monitor nuclear installations which discharge radioactive substances into the environment.
At the time, I welcomed this decision as a step in the right direction but I also stressed that it fell short of the Independent Community Inspection Force which Ireland has long been seeking and which would cover all aspects of safety, related to nuclear plants. Nevertheless, I asked the EC Commissioner for the Environment to give priority attention to the inspection of a number of reprocessing plants and nuclear reactors, including of course Sellafield, which are of concern to Ireland.
I also asked that adequate staffing and financial resources be provided in order to permit the early commencement of a vigorous inspection programme. Regretfully, so far the EC Commission has carried out only two inspections, one in Germany and one in Luxembourg. Ireland has expressed strong disappointment at Community level at this very poor level of implementation of the Commission's decision and at Council of Minister's level has called on the Commission to fully exercise its rights of inspection of monitoring facilities in member states.
