I wish to share my time with Deputy Ivor Callely.
Adjournment Debate. - Sellafield Nuclear Plant.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I think all Members of the House are at one on this issue. We must now decide the kind of urgent action to be taken to deal with this problem. In 1986 all sides of the House accepted a motion which called for the closure of Sellafield. Last year all parties supported in principle a motion put down by my colleague, the Minister for Health, Deputy Howlin, which called for decisive legal action to stop the contamination of THORP.
The case for retaining Sellafield and THORP on economic, environmental and security grounds has collapsed. The cost benefit analysis carried out on THORP estimates that the plant will mean an extra £2 billion for the British economy each year. It is striking that the British Government refused to show any of the contracts for THORP at the recent Second Consultative Process and that no attempt has ever been made to privatise British Nuclear Fuels Limited. The reason is that it would be valued in negative terms on the market. The economic case for retaining this plant has collapsed. Other nuclear countries are carrying out reviews and revisions of their nuclear industries. For example, President Clinton is carrying out a review of the nuclear industry in the United States.
I do not have to reiterate the environmental reasons for closing Sellafield — these have been well stated by my colleagues over the past six or seven years. Suffice it to say that emissions of the chemical krypton 85 will lead to approximately 100 extra cancer cases a year at a minimum and approximately 1,300 extra cases a year at a maximum. Available scientific evidence on emissions from Sellafield is very damning indeed. For example, two Irish scientists have identified a conclusive link between emissions from Sellafield and the disturbing trend in the number of mental handicap cases in Ireland during the mid-fifties.
It should be remembered that British Nuclear Fuels Limited has for 40 years pursued a policy of disinformation. If the THORP plan goes ahead we will be faced with the horrible spectacle of an extra 70 ships a year carrying highly radio-active plutonium waste on the Irish Sea. As a public representative for a coastal constituency with an important sea fishing port, Howth, I find this prospect frightening. In addition we could be faced with the spectacle of Japanese warships guarding Japanese ships carrying waste on the Irish Sea.
I ask the Minister to meet Minister Gummer immediately to discuss this issue and I call for a public inquiry. If there is no public inquiry we should take legal action. The British Government agreed to two consultative processes but they pre-judged these by allowing the contamination of THORP. This would give us a strong basis for taking legal action in either British courts or European international courts. It was recently recognised that Greenpeace had a legitimate interest in this matter. If it has a legitimate interest, then surely the Irish Government has a legitimate interest. In previous debates Members referred to Article 170 of the original EC Treaty and Article 142 of EURATOM. We could make a strong legal case for the closure of this plant and I ask the Minister to take urgent action to deal with this issue before there are any disastrous consequences.
I thank Deputy Broughan for sharing his time with me. All I can do is echo and endorse the points made by him and other Deputies in this House in the past. I have no doubt that this issue will lead to further debate in this House.
I am aware that successive Governments have attempted to address with their UK counterparts the problems posed by the British nuclear industry. Sadly, the wish of the Irish public that this plant be closed has not been fulfilled. I do not know how best to explain to the Minister the genuine public concern which exists about Sellafield and THORP. British Nucler Fuels Limited has been granted a temporary permit to carry out testing at the THORP plant. This represents a further disaster in terms of the well-being of the Irish public. I know that the Minister and the Government have done their best in dealing with this problem but we expect a little more at this stage. The Minister should take whatever steps are necessary before the general public come knocking on his door asking him to deal with this issue.
I thank Deputies Broughan and Callely for their very solid support for the efforts taken by the Government in dealing with Sellafield.
Government policy on Sellafield has been and continues to be one of opposition to the commissioning of the plant. The Irish Government has consistently opposed the continuation and expansion of reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel by British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield because of the increase in risk to the health of the public and of environmental contamination arising from discharges of radioactive effluent; the risk of accidents, arising from the reprocessing activity and the storage and transport of nuclear fuel, plutonium and radioactive wastes; the accumulation of large amounts of radio-active waste on one site close to the Irish Sea and to Ireland; the risk of nuclear proliferation from increasing stocks of plutonium; and the so far unsolved problems of long term safe storage and disposal of radioactive waste arising from reprossessing.
On many occasions the Government has requested the UK Government to close Sellafield and emphasised Ireland's total opposition to the plant. Our concerns in relation to the plant have also been expressed at every available opportunity in the European Community and other international fora, including the June meeting of the Paris Commission on the Prevention of Marine Pollution and the General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last week. We will continue to pursue this line of total opposition.
The House will be aware that in January of this year the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Cowen, sent a detailed and wide-ranging submission to the UK Minister for the Environment and the UK Inspectorate of Pollution. 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.
In particular the submission expressed the Government's 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. On 28 June the UK Secretary of State for the Environment announced that after consideration by him and the UK Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the report of the 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 authorisations. However, because a high volume of submissions, including ours, had raised questions as to the justification for the operation of THORP it was decided to delay the commissioning of the plant until a further round of consultations to deal with the wider issues had been held.
On 4 August the UK authorities circulated the following documents which formed the basis of this further consultation: a report by the Inspectorate of Pollution on the results of the earlier consultation exercise; a paper by British Nuclear Fuels on the economic and commercial justification for THORP; a statement of UK Government policy on reprocessing and the operation of THORP and a document prepared by British Nuclear Fuels entitled Further material on the Environmental aspects of the Operation of THORP. Following consideration of this further material, the Minister, Deputy Cowen, made a second and more comprehensive submission on behalf of the Government to the UK authorities last week.
In addition to detailing our previously stated opposition to the THORP plant this submission concludes that, as THORP will serve no overall useful purpose, there is no justification for the increased risk of radiation exposure that the public will receive from the plant. There is also an increased risk of nuclear proliferation for military purposes by adding to the large existing stockpile of plutonium around the world.
Minister Cowen also concluded, in a separate detailed examination of British Nuclear Fuels's economics of reprocessing at THORP, that there are no demonstrable overall economic or security benefits arising from THORP's operation which would justify it or balance possible and likely risks to public health and environmental damage. I will be making copies of the full submission available to Members of the Oireachtas in the library tomorrow.
In this submission we have renewed our call on the United Kingdom authorities to hold a full, open and independent public inquiry to deal with the basic justification for operating the THORP plant in the circumstances now prevailing as well as the technical aspects of the revised discharge authorisations.
The UK Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, who have statutory responsibility for considering whether to hold a hearing or inquiry, will not take a final decision on this question until they have considered all submissions.
While the Government has always been and continues to be committed to legal action against Sellafield if a sufficient case for it can be shown to exist, it cannot initiate such action without a firm legal case based on sufficient evidence. The Attorney General has advised that any such legal action would have to be based on scientific evidence as to the injurious effects of operations at the Sellafield plant on Ireland.
The EC Commission has examined the implications of THORP and issued an official opinion that the implementation of the plan for the disposal of radioactive waste from THORP is not liable, either in normal operation or in the case of an accident, to result in radioactive contamination significant from the point of view of health, water, soil or airspace of another member state.
Furthermore, evidence is not available to suggest that activities at the entire complex, including the proposed operation of the THORP plant, are or will be in breach of EC law and international conventions which would sustain a successful legal action. The Government is open to information and evidence from any source to support a sustainable case regarding the closure of Sellafield. It is not, however, prepared to proceed to legal action without a solid and sustainable case.
That is not an enthusiastic endorsement.
I am disappointed we do not have the support of Deputy Dukes.