Written Answers. - Interministerial Committee.
Eoin Ryan
Question:
119
Mr. E. Ryan
asked the
Minister for the Environment
the members of the Interministerial Committee on Sellafield and the Irish Sea; the terms of reference of the committee; the dates of its meetings to date; the agendas of such meetings; the work completed to date; the work on hand; the full-time staff, if any, allocated to the committee; the number and grades of staff serving as the committee's secretariat; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
[9565/96]
The Policy Agreement for a Government of Renewal (PAGR) noted that Sellafield poses a serious and continuing threat to the health and safety of Irish people. Other hazards include the ever increasing traffic on the Irish Sea and the number of aging nuclear reactors on the west coast of Britain and Europe. The agreement sets out a series of actions which the Government is pursuing in relation to Sellafield.
As these proposals relate to a number of different Departments, a Ministerial Group on Sellafield and the Irish Sea was established under my chairmanship in April 1995 to co-ordinate action on these matters. The Departments of Transport, Energy and Communications, Foreign Affairs, the Marine and the Taoiseach are represented at Minister of State level. In addition, senior officials from these Departments and the Department of the Environment attend the meetings, as do senior representatives of the Attorney General's office, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and the Department of Health.
The group has met on three occasions to date and its work is to co-ordinate and monitor measures in pursuit of the relevant PAGR commitments. In addition, the group provides a forum to review and agree strategy in relation to developments generally on nuclear matters including accidents and nuclear testing.
The group is also supervising the investigation of options open to Ireland as a non-nuclear country to do everything possible to ensure that the Irish population and environment are not unduly exposed to nuclear risks and to strive in the international arena for reduced dependence on nuclear, both as an energy source and as a military deterrent. The situation in relation to the key issues within the co-ordinating remit of the group is as follows.
The Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications has written on several occasions to the UK Minister for Energy and to the Secretary of State for the Environment outlining in the strongest terms the very deep concerns of the Irish Government about the adequacy of safety in the UK's nuclear industry, including concerns about the safety and reliability of the UK's aging Magnox reactors. At a recent meeting with the British Ambassador, the Minister expressed grave concern about the number of incidents which had occurred in the recent past at Sellafield and other aspects of the British nuclear industry including in particular the ongoing pollution of the Irish Sea which is unacceptable; the Nirex proposals for an underground nuclear dump near the Sellafield complex; the continued operation of Magnox reactors beyond their design life and the need for their decommissioning, as well as concerns about the safety implications of privatising the British nuclear industry. He also arranged to have the matter raised at the next Ireland-UK meeting of the contact group on nuclear safety matters.
The Government is opposed to the proposed NIREX nuclear waste facility near Sellafield and in January 1996 the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications presented a submission, on behalf of the Government, to the Public Enquiry in the UK which is investigating a preliminary proposal in this regard. The Government's concerns, as outlined at the inquiry, centre on the proximity of Sellafield to the Irish Sea, the uncertainties about the geological and hydrogeological nature of the area and doubts about whether the building of a radioactive waste repository near the marine environment was compatible with the UK's commitments under EU and international law. The Irish delegation called on the inquiry to recommend against the NIREX proposal and suggested that the choice of location was being influenced not so much by nuclear safety, radiation protection or environmental matters, as by cost and transport factors and a degree of acceptability of the nuclear industry and its ancillary operations on the part of the local population in Cumbria.
Shipments of plutonium and spent nuclear fuel are governed by the requirements of the International Maritime organisation Code on the Safe Carriage of Irradiated Nuclear Fuels known as the INF Code. This code is considered by Ireland to be deficient in a number of very important respects and many of the basic requirements for dangerous cargoes, from which nuclear fuels are exempt, are absent from the INF Code. The Minister of State at the Department of the Marine raised these deficiencies at a recent meeting of the International Maritime Organisations (IMO) and secured agreement to the Irish resolution instructing the IMO's Marine Safety Committee (MSC) and the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) to consider extending the INF code to include the following:
— route planning
— notification to the coastal state
— marking of flasks
— protection and salvage plans in the event of emergencies
— the designation of sensitive areas in which nuclear shipments must not take place.
At the request of the ministerial group, the Attorney General, with the assistance of the Departments concerned, is conducting a further assessment of the possibilities for legal action against the Sellafield-THORP facilities. The options being considered include possible recourse to arbitration under the existing Paris Convention for the Prevention of Marine Pollution from Land-Based Sources as well as possible scope in this regard under the more recent OSPAR Convention which Ireland will ratify shortly. The Government remains committed to legal action against Sellafield if a sustainable case for it can be shown to exist based on sufficient evidence of environmental or public health impact.
The Government's concerns about the incident at the Wylfa Magnox reactor in 1993, its potential seriousness and the failure of Nuclear Electric to react promptly have been conveyed by the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communication to the UK Minister for Industry and Energy and the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Minister also questioned the reliability of the Wylfa plant and similar Magnox reactors operating in the UK and called on the UK authorities to phase out all such reactors as soon as practicable, in the interests of public safety and environmental protection.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has consistently used all appropriate and available opportunities both bilateral and multilateral, including meetings within the framework of the EU and UN to raise the issue of French nuclear testing.
The possibility of a review and update of the Euratom Treaty, which governs EU policy in relation to nuclear issues, so as to place greater emphasis on health, safety and environmental aspects has been raised by Ireland in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference which is considering amendments to the treaties of the Union.
As Minister for the Environment, I avail of all appropriate opportunities to promote the Government's concerns about the risk to the environment from nuclear installations. I did so at the EU Environment Council on 6 October 1995 and at the ECE Ministerial Conference, Environment for Europe, held in Sofia from 23 to 25 October. On these occasions, I emphasised that risk of nuclear accidents is rightly perceived by the European public as a leading environmental concern but that current policies were not sufficiently responding to this concern by proper application of the precautionary and other environmental principles now well established for non-nuclear activities.
The work of the group is supported by officials of each of the Departments and agencies represented, while secretarial support is provided by officials of my Department across a range of grades, as part of their general duties relating to environmental protection.
The group will continue its role in ensuring good co-ordination of strategy on nuclear matters and in overseeing the work of Departments in response to the relevant provisions of the PAGR.
