Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 5 Apr 1995

Vol. 142 No. 14

Adjournment Matters. - Legal Action Against British Nuclear Fuels Limited.

Mr. Roche

I welcome the Minister and thank him for rushing here. As the Minister and the House alike know, Sellafield is a time bomb which has been ticking away for a generation less than 60 miles from our coastline. The claims by the British authorities, particularly BNFL, that Sellafield is safe are not credible. As Windscale, that site saw one of the most potentially devastating of all nuclear events in peacetime. That event was kept secret and was the subject of lies and deceit. It has its effects on both sides of the Irish Sea. We know of an unexplained series of clusters of Down's Syndrome children born in Louth and of the incidence of leukaemia in Cumbria.

BNFL and the British authorities may well claim there is no provable connection between the incident and these events. As we all know, that is a deception which ignores the considerable and compelling body of circumstantial evidence and a growing body of scientific evidence and opinion. Since the plant has opened it has turned the Irish Sea into a radioactive cesspit.

The coastal counties of Wicklow, Louth, Dublin, Down and Antrim have all borne witness from time to time to the effects of that cesspit on fish life. Fish abnormalities are regularly found. In The Irish Times today Dr. Reville of UCC suggests that since the THORP plant came on stream, the radioactive dosage for heavy consumers of fish taken from the Irish Sea has increased by a factor of three.

We in the coastal counties, in particular the people of Wicklow, are aware of other human tragedies which have been less well documented. There have been inexplicable clusters of children born with limb defects. In the last week a British national newspaper carried photographs of limb defects in Russia similar to those which have occurred in Wicklow. The newspaper attributed all the defects in Russia to problems in nuclear stations. The limb defects in Wicklow have been in no way connected to genetic factors or pre-natal accidents; there seems to be no environmental explanation other than Sellafield. In recent times there has been an alarming and equally unexplained incidence of cancers. There have been clusters of breast cancer in small areas in the county which cannot be explained by environmental factors. Concern has also been expressed about cancers in children.

We cannot be happy with the record of British Nuclear Fuels. Its THORP plant has become a nuclear dumping ground for the world and the Irish Sea is the main access route serving it. All Irish Governments have to date been unduly cautious in this matter. Actions which have been taken at official level can at best be described as limp-wristed and ineffective. We have been fearful of the wrath of Downing Street, Westminster and Whitehall. It is time to put this conservative attitude behind us.

Now, through the courageous action of four private citizens in Louth, a doorway has been opened in the wall of obfuscation which has surrounded the death factory of THORP at Sellafield. I call on the Minister of State and the Government to join the private action taken by those citizens, to fund it and take it further. I also call on the coastal local authorities north and south, including my local authority, and on Welsh, Scottish and English local authorities to join separately and collectively in the action.

I hope the Minister will not tell us he is having the legal case re-assessed. I hope he will not say yet another Attorney-General will be taking yet more legal advice on this issue. I hope we will not be told that that great Irish panacea, another task force, will be called into play. On this issue we in Ireland are alone. EU states with nuclear installations will not rock the boat. The British authorities will not move on this issue. We know British Governments have ignored our entreaties and diplomatic urgings on this matter.

Now is the time for the Government to put its money where its mouth is and become involved in this action. If. as was suggested last night in the Dáil, the State stands back and waits until this matter goes through the Supreme Court as a private action, it would be an unpardonable act of betrayal, not only of the people of Ireland but of a few private citizens who have bravely taken on the might of the British establishment. The Minister of State, Deputy Stagg, has shown courage in the past and has more than a passing interest in this issue. I look for action from him tonight.

Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications (Mr. Stagg)

I thank the Senator for raising this important matter and giving me the opportunity to state the Government's position. I apologise for my late arrival in the House; I was voting in the Dáil.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

We understand that, Minister.

Mr. Roche

It was those dreadful Fianna Fáil people.

Mr. Stagg

They are not that dreadful. Over the years successive Irish Governments have shared a general national concern about nuclear power installations at Sellafield, the continuation and expansion of spent fuel reprocessing facilities on the site, including THORP, discharges of radioactive waste into the marine environment and shipments of radioactive materials through the Irish Sea. It has been argued that the only way to resolve Irish concerns about Sellafield is to close the plant. These views have repeatedly been conveyed to the UK Government, but to no avail. As a result the Government has decided that something more positive needs to be done to tackle the problems of Sellafield, particularly the threat of pollution and its effect on the health and safety of the Irish public.

The Government considers the THORP reprocessing plant, which began operations last year, represents an additional and unnecessary risk to the health and safety of the Irish population. When THORP was originally given the planning go-ahead in 1977, nuclear power was still believed to have a prosperous future and reprocessing was thought to be a key factor in the uranium fuel cycle. Today the arguments for reprocessing are not convincing. The anticipated expansion of nuclear power has not materialised and the plutonium and uranium recovered from spent fuel are no longer required for reasons of economy or security of supply. Indeed, they are adding unnecessarily to the huge stockpile of nuclear materials which exists worldwide and which is considered by some countries, including Ireland, to be a major security and political problem.

During 1993 many requests were made to the UK authorities from Ireland and other EU member states to hold a public inquiry into THORP and to have an environmental impact assessment undertaken, but these requests were refused by the UK Government. The decision of the High Court, which established the jurisdiction of the Irish courts to hear the substantive case brought by a group of Dundalk residents against British Nuclear Fuels against THORP, is therefore welcome.

The four plaintiffs from Dundalk are seeking an injunction to restrain operations at the THORP plant on the basis that they maintain it has not fully complied with the EU Directive on environmental impact assessment and also the justification principle under Euratom legislation. Ireland and the Attorney General have been named by the plaintiffs as co-defendants in the proceedings, on the basis that in their view the State should have intervened to ensure that EU legislation was fully complied with before the plant went into operation.

On 22 March 1994, Mr. Justice Carney made an order allowing the plaintiffs to serve a plenary summons outside the jurisdiction on British Nuclear Fuels Limited. Counsel for BNFL applied to the High Court on 8 December 1994 to have the company discharged from the proceedings. They put forward a motion seeking to set aside the earlier court order of 22 March 1994 allowing service outside this jurisdiction. The application of BNFL was heard in the High Court by Mr. Justice O'Hanlon over six days from 9 — 20 December 1994. Although Ireland and the Attorney General are named as co-defendants in the substantive case taken by the Dundalk residents, the Government in fact also resisted British Nuclear Fuel's application to have an order allowing service of the summons out of the State set aside. This is a clear illustration of the Government's commitment to do all in its power to eliminate the threat posed by Sellafield and THORP.

In his judgment, Mr. Justice O'Hanlon concluded that the original order made by Justice Carney giving leave to serve out of the jurisdiction was validly made and he therefore refused the application to set aside the order giving such leave. It is understood that BNFL are likely to appeal the judgment to the Supreme Court. The Attorney General's Office is examining the judgment and will advise my Department on its implications and the further action required on our part.

There have been many requests that the plaintiffs should be indemnified by the State in respect of their costs of pursuing the proceedings. It was indicated, in response to two parliamentary questions on 24 January, that it was considered appropriate in the circumstances to await the outcome of the case taken by British Nuclear Fuels before reaching a decision one way or the other upon that request. The Attorney General's Office will now consider that matter further, but if BNFL appeal to the Supreme Court, the Attorney General will await that judgment before reaching a decision. Senators can be assured that in the event of an appeal by British Nuclear Fuels to the Supreme Court, I will instruct the Attorney General and the Chief State Solicitor to strongly resist such an application, as we did in the High Court case.

It is clear that there is widespread opposition in this country to all operations at Sellafield. The Government is committed to taking all possible action open to it to secure the objective of the eventual closure of the plant. Such action includes the possibility of taking a legal action if a sustainable case can be shown to exist, based on sufficient evidence.

The Government's policy agreement, A Government of Renewal, sets out a series of actions which the Government will pursue in relation to Sellafield. My Department has therefore drawn up a blueprint to implement the various commitments on Sellafield and the Irish Sea, including a reassessment of the legal possibilities of taking a court case against Sellafield and the question of requesting arbitration on THORP's radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea under the Paris Convention on Marine Pollution. I have asked the Attorney General to advise me as a matter of urgency on these matters. The blueprint for action on Sellafield is also being studied by my colleagues, the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of State at the Department of the Marine, and I expect the inaugural meeting of a task force of Ministers and official experts to take place shortly. The aim of this task force will be to develop a concerted strategy for implementing the Government's proposals on Sellafield. This is the first comprehensive initiative taken by any Government to date to deal with the problems of Sellafield and it illustrates the Government's serious intent to tackle an issue that is of major concern to the Irish people.

Mr. Roche

I will be brief. I thank the Minister. The Government he refers to in his speech was in fact the previous Government and I welcome that. I suggest to him that the task force is probably not the way to go, but I know that this Minister has commitment and energy in this matter and I look forward to action on it.

The Seanad adjourned at 8.55 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 6 April 1995.