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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 14 May 2003

Vol. 566 No. 4

Ceisteanna – Questions (Resumed). Priority Questions. - Nuclear Plants.

Bernard Allen

Question:

122 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if he will make a statement on the Government's progress to date on its commitment to force the UK Government to close the Sellafield nuclear plant. [13021/03]

The Government has taken, and will continue to take, a proactive role in campaigning against reprocessing operations at Sellafield. An Agreed Programme for Government states that we regard the continued existence of Sellafield as an unacceptable threat to Ireland, that it should be closed and that we will use every diplomatic and legal route available to us to work towards the removal of this threat.

The Government has taken an important initiative in pursuit of this policy objective through its separate legal actions, under the OSPAR convention and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS, regarding the Sellafield MOX plant. These actions are proceeding on schedule and are challenging operations at the Sellafield MOX plant on economic, legal, environmental and safety grounds. As regards the OSPAR case, oral hearings took place before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague in October 2002 and a determination in the case is awaited. Oral hearings in respect of the UNCLOS case are expected to take place over three weeks beginning on 10 June 2003.

In addition, the Government has developed a strong and constructive campaign against nuclear energy in general, and against activities at Sellafield in particular, that focuses clearly on the threat to Ireland from these activities based on genuine concerns regarding safety, security and sustainability.

Does the Minister agree that in the event of internal sabotage or the widespread devastation of the Sellafield plant by the high speed impact of a large aircraft, the consequences would be severe for this country and the UK? In scale with the Chernobyl disaster involving caesium-137, a total of 14 million people would be exposed to doses of radiation and approximately 540,000 cancer deaths would be caused. These figures come from a paper presented at a scientific meeting in this city some months ago. The devastation would be increased by the fact that there would be at least a 30-year half-life on some of the emissions.

Does the Minister agree that the delay in getting a judgment on the hearings last October is effectively long fingering the problem? Does he agree that there is a renewed urgency to declare unconditional war on the British nuclear industry, in view of the figures I have presented? Aside from encouraging a postcard campaign to the British Prime Minister, funded by Fianna Fáil, what has been done to insist that Irish scientists from the Radiological Protection Institute and other institutions in this country be allowed access to the Sellafield plant to examine its security and operational aspects? Why has the UK Government refused to allow Irish scientists onto the site to assess the implications for this country, given the frightening statistics I mentioned?

The Deputy makes my point for me. His concluding question goes to the heart of the reason for the court cases in which we are involved. I do not believe the results of the court case under the OSPAR convention are being long fingered. The case was only heard in the last few months before Christmas—

Last October.

That is true. I had hoped we would have some indications by now but we do not. However, we expect these judgments in the near future. I hope that we have them before the UNCLOS case starts on 10 June, which is only some weeks away. These go to the heart of the Deputy's question in terms of access to information about security now and in the future, and the question of the nuclear industry. It is important that the Government takes a definitive route on this. To embark on legal cases in regard to these issues was a major step for this Government to take. I am glad it has done so and that the first case has been heard. We look forward to the second case. We will see how those cases proceed and what their results will be. There are other options open to us.

One of the issues I have raised, however, is the question of trying to build a broader based political alliance with regard to the future of the nuclear industry. No country can continue to develop new nuclear facilities in isolation from the surrounding countries or, as I would prefer, from a European context because, as the Deputy has rightly said, the consequences of a disaster at a nuclear power plant are almost too horrendous to contemplate. These are not issues for Ireland alone. They should be issues for all of us as European people and all the peoples of the world. What happened in Chernobyl and the destruction it caused is unbelievable and, given our location, the impact of a similar or greater nuclear accident, or a terrorist event on this country, particularly an attack on the UK nuclear industry, would be devastating.

The Irish Government was promised that there would be access to Sellafield for Irish scientists. Why is the British Government still refusing to allow scientists from our radiological protection institutes and other institutes to examine operations in the plant? Why is the Irish Government not insisting as a sovereign government on its rights regarding a promise that was made many years ago and still has not been honoured? Why is the British Government still refusing access?

There is a lot of contact. It would be wrong to say there is no contact. This is the heart of our case, the level of information being given to us as a sovereign government. We exhausted all possibilities before taking the case.

They have given us the two finger exercise.

We took direct action. We said if that is the way the game is we would take them—

We bombarded them with postcards and they gave us the two fingers.

The Deputy does not believe that. That is at the heart of the OSPAR case. We had to go to the Court of Arbitration in the Hague specifically on this point because this Government is not satisfied with the access that the representative institutions which are responsible to us are getting to information on a range of fronts – environmental, security and economic – which are at the heart of some of the issues relating to the MOX plant. The Deputy is quite correct in suggesting that we are not satisfied. We exhausted all possibilities and then had to take the final step which was to go to the Court of Arbitration.

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