Pat Rabbitte
Question:67 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the position regarding the State's legal battle against the Sellafield MOX plant; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4390/02]
Written Answers. - Nuclear Plants.
I refer the Deputy to my answer to Dáil Questions Nos. 193, 202 and 218 answered on 30 January 2002 in which I detailed the Government's sustained campaign against the Sellafield Plant and the nature of its legal action in regard to the Sellafield MOX Plant under both the OSPAR Convention and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas. In my reply, I mentioned the ITLOS judgment, handed down on 3 December 2001. This judgment imposed obligations of co-operation on the United Kingdom vis-à-vis the exchange of information and the establishment of measures to protect the marine environment. These obligations are being monitored and exercised in full pending the hearing of the substantive case against the Sellafield MOX plant under a Law of the Seas Annex VII Arbitral Tribunal. Ireland will shortly be in a position to submit a written memorial to this tribunal. It is anticipated that a hearing by the arbitral tribunal will take place this autumn. In so far as the OSPAR action is concerned, the position is as advised in the answers to the Dáil questions already referred to.