Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 6 Jul 1993

Vol. 433 No. 5

Adjournment Debate. - Sellafield Nuclear Plant.

Mrs. Doyle

For the record I would like the Minister to indicate our Government's involvement in the consultation process now being offered by British Nuclear Fuels Limited while the commissioning of the THORP Plant at Sellafield has been postponed. As is now known, the Secretary of State for the Department of the Environment, Mr. John Gummer, MP, announced in the British House of Parliament on 28 June that the British Government would hold a further round of public consultation on the thermal oxide reprocessing plant — THORP as we refer to it — at the Sellafield site in Cumbria. This statement was based on the inspectorate's report which Mr. Gummer had received on 21 May. Basically, it would appear that the large number of submissions received by the British authorities against the siting and commissioning of THORP at the Sellafield site in Cumbria means that further consultation time is necessary. I would like to know how our Government would be involved and what case they will bring forward to represent the Irish viewpoint at that consultation process.

THORP was originally proposed in the seventies when fast breeder reactors looked like becoming a commercial reality. As of now there is no justification for recovering plutonium and uranium from nuclear waste. Even the Science Policy Research Unit of Sussex University decided that the economic advantages lay in storing spent fuel rather than providing additional reprocessing capacity at THORP. Radioactive Waste Management Committee, an independent UK body, has stated that reprocessing actually complicates nuclear waste management by increasing the type and volume of waste left to be dealt with rather than simplifying the problem. It follows that there is no economic justification for the commissioning of THORP now or at any stage in the future. There is no economic reason as far as the UK authorities and the UK public are concerned and there is certainly no justification for increasing the risk to the health and safety of the Irish public.

I wish to put on the record again my concerns about the number of nuclear plants which the British authorities have decided to locate on their least populated west coast in peripheral areas. If there was no risk to the health and safety of the British public why are these plants, including the new proposed THORP plant, not sited in downtown London or downtown Birmingham? The Minister and I know that they are not sited in densely populated areas because of the risk factor associated with the location of nuclear plants. Why then should they be located on the least populated west coast of the UK directly down wind, some, such as Sellafield, as near as 60 miles from the most populated east coast of our country? Why should the UK authorities put the Irish public at increased risk to their health and safety on the basis of minimising risk to the British public? At least the British public are getting some economic benefit from the nuclear programme in that nuclear-generated energy contributes to their electricity grid. There is no benefit to the Irish public and no justification for the present risk to our health and safety let alone increasing that risk by the commissioning of the proposed THORP plant.

There are many other reasons why this proposal is totally unacceptable. We cannot accept increased atmospheric emissions nor increased marine discharges from THORP. The long term storage of highly toxic and radioactive substances is unacceptable. The increased shipping activity of nuclear waste in the Irish Sea is also totally unacceptable to our country and I hope the Minister of State, on behalf of the Government, will confirm this. We need a full public inquiry, promised during this consultation process, a public inquiry which I hope will point out that there is no economic justification for proceeding with THORP in the UK and no justification for the increased risk to the health and safety of the Irish public by so proceeding.

Planned increases in radioactive discharges from THORP would be in direct contradiction of the Paris convention's stated objective to eliminate marine pollution, and the Environment Ministers of all PARCOM countries who instructed the commission to "adopt specific objectives and timetables for the programmes and measures for the prevention and elimination of pollution by substances, including radioactive substances". Was the Government's proposal to the June PARCOM meeting in Berlin accepted? That was a worthwhile proposal and I tabled a parliamentary question on that matter earlier. It proposed that radioactive discharges into the marine environment should not exceed the average level of that reached in the past three years as a first step towards the elimination of radioactive nuclear discharges into our marine environment generally. Was that proposal accepted at the Berlin meeting of the Paris Convention?

Concerned local authorities on the east coast, among whom was Wexford County Council, made a joint submission to British Nuclear Fuels Limited and the British authorities in relation to the proposed construction of THORP. Can Wexford County Council be included as part of the consultation process over the next three months or so? I request that it be included in any consultations that take place. As we have the expertise in Wexford since the seventies — when the proposed nuclear power plant was mooted for Carnsore — we would like to be part of the consultation process to support the Government's view of no justification for the commissioning of THORP either from a UK point of view or from the point of view of the increased risk to the health and safety of our people.

Will the Minister confirm that a public inquiry is the least he will accept from British Nuclear Fuels Limited and the Department of the Environment in the UK? Will he ask them to give a commitment not to commission THORP, even though they may have to accept the £2.8 billion white elephant as a big mistake given the major change in the nuclear industry since it was originally mooted in the seventies? It is no use to them in economic terms and it is a major risk to the health and safety of the Irish people.

In conclusion, will the Minister state how we will take part in the proposed consultation process and will he indicate also that we will insist on the postponing indefinitely, if not abandoning of the prospect of commissioning THORP?

Mr. N. Treacy

The House will be aware that Minister Cowen sent a detailed and wide-ranging submission to the UK Minister for the Environment and the UK inspectorate of pollution, regarding British Nuclear Fuels Limited's proposed THORP extension at Sellafield.

This submission conveyed, in the strongest possible terms, the Government's total opposition to the continued operation of all nuclear activities carried out at Sellafield and to any expansion of these activities. Without prejudice to that position, in the submission Minister Cowen considered that, in general, the proposed liquid discharge limits for gaseous and liquid radioactive wastes, being proposed by the inspector of pollution, were grossly excessive in relation to the margins between the likely discharges and the proposed limits. Minister Cowen advised that these margins should be drastically reduced so that the authorisations should accord more closely with actual performance and thereby oblige British Nuclear Fuels to minimise and, where possible, eliminate discharges to conform with the International Commission for Radiological Protection principles of dose limitations.

The submission also considered that, having regard to the existing accumulation of long-lived radionuclides such as plutonium on the bed of the Irish Sea, and to the major uncertainties about the ultimate fate of these radionuclides, future discharges of long-lived radionuclides should not be permitted — particularly in view of the commitment under the recent Convention for the Protection of Marine Environment in the north-east Atlantic, to apply the precautionary principle where there are grounds for concern. The Government's submission also called for the draft authorisations for liquid discharges to be amended, to require British Nuclear Fuels Limited to use best available technology to control discharges, in keeping with commitments under this convention. It was also proposed that the THORP plant should not be allowed to proceed without krypton-85 gas removal technology being in place and that this technology would be retrofitted to the existing Magnox reprocessing plant.

In particular our Government has expressed grave concerns about commissioning the proposed new THORP plant on the site and the proposed new levels of authorised discharges from Sellafield into the atmosphere and the Irish Sea and called for a full public inquiry to be held before any decision is taken to proceed.

UK legislation provides that the Secretary of State of the Department of the Environment, must allow a hearing to take place in the case of the draft authorisation limits, if British Nuclear Fuels Limited should wish it. The Secretary of State, and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food also have the statutory responsibility for considering whether local authorities or other persons should be given the opportunity of a hearing. There is nothing in the legislation to limit the scope of the hearing, so on this basis Minister Cowen called on the UK authorities to hold a full public inquiry, in his Government submission, on the THORP plant.

However, it would appear from the announcement of 28 June last, made in the House of Commons by the Secretary of State for the Environment, that rather than holding a public inquiry the UK authorities have now decided to engage in a further consultation process. As I stated, Minister Cowen will continue to press for a full public inquiry to be held, before any final decision is taken on THORP.

In the House of Commons announcement referred to above, the Secretary of State for the Environment said that, after consideration by him and the UK Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, of the report presented to them, by the UK inspectorate of pollution, it has been concluded that no points of substance have been raised that should cause them to reconsider the terms of the draft authorisation, except for some minor amendments.

In the original consultation the UK inspectorate of pollution was only empowered to deal with the environmental acceptability of radioactive discharges from the Sellafield site. However, many of the submissions, including ours, raised questions as to the basic justification for THORP, including the economics of the plant and the need for the plutonium that would be produced. These matters will now be considered in the further round of consultations being undertaken by the UK authorities.

It is understood that a paper on the implications of reprocessing will be prepared by the UK Department of the Environment and sent to British Nuclear Fuels for its comments. This paper and BNFL's response will be made public and the consultation will then take place, over a ten week period.

The submissions will then be considered by the UK Secretary of State for the Environment and the UK Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, before a final decision is taken on THORP.

We have objected in the strongest possible terms to the conclusions reached, with regard to the draft discharge authorisations and have written to Mr. John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment. In that letter Minister Cowen expressed our Government's disappointment at the inspector's conclusions that no points of substance had been raised in the prior consultation process, which would cause a reconsideration of the terms of the draft authorisation for liquid and aerial discharges.

In addition, while our original submission raised important questions on the basic justification for THORP, we will be making a further submisison to the UK authorities after consideration of any material made available, as part of the further public consultation process. Deputies can be assured that we will also continue to press the UK authorities to hold a full, open and independent public enquiry on THORP.

The Government has maintained consistent pressure on the UK authorities to halt the commissioning of this plant. There has been some success so far. As I said, we sent a detailed and comprehensive submission about THORP in January this year to the British Minister for the Environment and to the inspector of pollution in the UK.

At a European level, copies of our submission were made available to the EC Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Paleokrasses, and to the Energy Commissioner, Mr. Matutes, as well as to all MEPs and the diplomatic corps.

The Irish delegation also played a very active part at a meeting in Berlin last month of the 13 member Paris Commission for he Prevention of Marine Pollution from land-based sources, where the THORP question was raised. At the meeting, the Irish delegation expressed its deep concern that the commissioning of the THORP reprocessing plant at Sellafield, will cause additional radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea and to the maritime area, generally covered by the Paris Convention.

At the end of the discussions, the Commission adopted an Irish proposal, cosponsored by Denmark, which agreed, that a new or revised discharge authorisation for radioactive discharges from nuclear reprocessing insallations, should only be issued by national authorities, if special consideration is given to information on the need for spent fuel reprocessing and other options to reprocessing and on having a full environmental impact assessment. It has also to be demonstrated that the planned radioactive discharges are based upon the use of the best available techniques and observe the precautionary principle. There should also be consultations by national authorities with the Paris Commission, on the basis of these considerations. The British delegation alone maintained a reservation on the recommendation.

I am pleased that participating States have been made aware once again of Ireland's concern about the nuclear industry generally and specifically in relation to our concern with regard to radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea and the continuing operation of nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, particularly at Sellafield. We will continue to raise our objections to the commissioning of the THORP plant at all appropriate international fora and I know we will have the support of all Members of the Oireachtas for our efforts. I thank Deputy Doyle for raising this important matter in such a positive and vigorous manner.

The Dáil adjourned at 12.05 a.m. on 7 July 1993 until 10.30 a.m.