I have been in the Seanad about six times during my watch to talk about nuclear matters. It has been a pleasure to do so and I am glad to be here again this evening. I fully respect the spirit behind the motion tabled by Senator Ross and Senator Norris but the Government has put down an amendment because the Senators' motion fails to recognise that the Government's campaign against Sellafield, including in particular the current legal action by the Government against the UK regarding the Sellafield MOX plant, has brought matters way beyond the stage of presenting a formal protest to the British ambassador. In common with Senator O'Dowd, I laud the two Senators for putting down this motion because it gives us a chance to air this subject again. I also agree with Senator O'Dowd that it is important to keep debating this issue. I want to persuade Senator Ross, Senator Norris and their colleagues that a great deal has been done in this area and that no more can humanly be done.
I was delighted when I was given responsibility four and a half years ago for nuclear matters and leading the Government's campaign against Sellafield. I have endeavoured to do all that is humanly possible in that regard. First, I met the most relevant UK Minister, Mr. Michael Meacher, MP, and I outlined Ireland's legitimate concerns to him. I spoke about our concerns regarding the possibility of a major incident or accident, although a terrorist attack was far from our minds at that time. I agree with Senator Ross and others who mentioned the new perspective since 11 September. The level of urgency has soared in that regard and this must be reflected in our ongoing actions.
I explained to him that the threat of an incident or accident which would affect the health and safety of the people of this island was our uppermost concern, particularly given our proximity. There are also ageing magnox reactors and a high level of waste, as Senator O'Dowd mentioned. This is stored in liquid form and is of major concern to us. The UK authorities are endeavouring to make that safer by a vitrification process but that is too slow – it is not at the speed the Irish Government wants. We have exhorted them to speed up the process because, as it stands, it will take until 2015 before the current stocks of liquid waste are dealt with. We have exhorted the British authorities to ensure that the process is expedited and to put on additional lines.
We have reminded them of the contamination of the Irish Sea. The assertion that the Irish Sea is the ocean most contaminated by radioactivity in the world is often quoted, but that is far from the case. However, any level of radioactivity in our waters is totally objectionable and we will not stand for it. Discharges into our marine environment caused by these plants are also objectionable.
These issues have all been spelt out repeatedly to the UK authorities and Ministers, starting with Michael Meacher, who is still a Minister for the Environment, the Minister for Energy, John Battle, and his successor Helen Liddell. We met all of them in London and they were also good enough to come to Dublin with their officials. We went over this with them ad nauseam but as we went over the detailed facts behind our objections, after about a year and a half, I came to the conclusion that while I was getting a very courteous hearing from and interaction with UK Ministers, we were not getting very far in terms of action. These plants are there since 1946 and successive Irish Governments have voiced their concerns about them, but have got nowhere.
However, although we said we were keeping legal action under review, I decided to be proactive and to put preparatory work in place for such legal action. I sought legal expertise here and abroad – at QC level in the UK – and other necessary expertise, such as economic and nuclear advice. That work went on for two years up to last May when I met the Taoiseach, whom I had kept abreast of developments, and told him the preparatory work was done. I told him I was ready to move with legal action on a number of fronts. I wanted the Taoiseach to give his imprimatur and to take that information to Government seeking approval to take legal action. Mere Ministers of State do not sit at the Cabinet table, but I was afforded the opportunity to present the case in the first week of June 2001.
Before June was out we had embarked on the legal process under the OSPAR treaty. This was not a reactive measure put in place after 11 September. It was a proactive measure and preparatory work and expenditure had been going on over two years. That was a very important action to take.
In parallel with that, we continued to deal with the UK authorities and voice our disapproval. We also internationalised this campaign. I journeyed to Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland and the Danish Minister, Sven Auken, came to Dublin to see me. Ireland is now globally recognised as being in the vanguard of the campaign against nuclear expansion and the expansion of nuclear energy in developing countries. All that work has been done and I appreciate the support I have had from the Oireachtas in the years that I have been involved with this. I notice that the support in the other House has been on the wane in recent times, but being a hardened politico I can appreciate that that is because of another imminent event.
I fully respect the spirit in which the Senators' motion has been tabled. I hope they accept that the issue has moved on to a point beyond approaching the British ambassador. Senators will recall that the last time I addressed a debate in this House concerning Sellafield was in October 2001. That debate took place following the announcement by the UK Government that it had given the go-ahead to the MOX plant. Since then, the Government has been very active in trying to stop the full commissioning of the MOX plant and in continuing to express its view that operations at the Sellafield site should be ended.
From the Government's counter motion, Members of the House will see that Ireland's strong views have been expressed at the highest levels to the UK Government. Therefore, to protest to the British ambassador would not add anything to the UK's awareness of our position on the matter. Successive Irish Governments have opposed the continued operation and any expansion of the Sellafield plant. With its multiplicity of operations, Sellafield represents a potentially serious threat to Ireland's public health and environment, as well as to our vital commercial interests such as fishing, agriculture and tourism. The Government remains unrelenting in its campaign to bring about the closure of Sellafield.
Since assuming the portfolio for nuclear safety and radiological protection, I have met UK Ministers on numerous occasions. After taking office in 1997, I quickly sought a meeting with the UK Environment Minister, Mr. Michael Meacher. At our meeting in Dublin, I conveyed to Minister Meacher the whole range of nuclear safety issues of concern to Ireland. In February 1999, I conveyed in no uncertain terms to Minister Meacher the strong objections of the Government to radioactive discharges from Sellafield to the Irish Sea and about the proposed decision by the UK Environment Agency to give the go-ahead to the Sellafield MOX plant. At that meeting, I emphasised to Minister Meacher the necessity for the UK to take account, in its review of Sellafield radioactive discharges authorisation limits, of the strong commitments made by the UK Ministers at the June 1998 meeting in Portugal of the OSPAR Commission, at which the OSPAR Strategy on Radioactive Discharges to the marine environment was adopted.
UK Ministers at that meeting gave me an assurance that they would address that matter, and in particular they would address an Irish motion on the rise of levels of technetium 99 in the Irish Sea. It has not been addressed. As Senators will know, the OSPAR strategy provided for the virtual elimination of radioactive discharges to the marine environment by the year 2020 through a programme of progressive and substantial reductions in such discharges.
In May 1999, I met with the then UK Minister of State for Energy and Industry, Mr. John Battle. At that meeting, I reiterated the Government's concerns about the safety of the storage of high-level radioactive waste in liquid form in tanks at Sellafield and I pressed for the speedy vitrification of this waste. I also raised with him our concerns about the safety of the old Magnox reactors in the UK which continue to operate beyond their original design life. While Minister Battle assured me that these reactors would not be allowed to continue operating unless it was safe to do so, I nevertheless called for the closing down of these reactors.
It was as a direct result of my sustained representations to Minister Battle around that time that the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland was allowed access to examine, on the BNFL premises, the BNFL safety standards documentation relating to the storage tanks where the high-level liquid waste is kept. The RPII carried out a two week examination of the documentation at Sellafield and published its report in December 2000. In summary, the RPII concluded that the risk of a severe accident associated with the storage arrangements for this liquid waste was low. However, the RPII made a number of recommendations for reducing the risk further and has maintained contact with the UK authorities as to the implementation of those recommendations.
February 2000, as the House will be aware, saw the publication by the UK's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of three separate reports relating to the Sellafield plant. One of these reports, relating to the control and supervision of operations at Sellafield, and another relating to the falsification of safety related data for MOX fuel pellets produced at the Sellafield MOX demonstration facility, were highly critical of the safety culture and safety management at the plant. Immediately following the publication of these reports, I met with the then UK Minister of State for Energy, Mrs. Helen Liddell, to convey the Government's serious concerns about the reports and called for the cessation of Sellafield operations. As far as the Government is concerned, these reports dealt a severe body blow to the reputation of BNFL as a safety conscious operation, a body blow from which I am convinced BNFL will find it difficult to recover. Even today, two years later, some of the safety improvement recommendations contained in the report on the control and supervision of operations at the plant have yet to be implemented.
In all my meetings and correspondence with British Ministers, they were left under no illusions whatsoever as to the depth of opposition in Ireland to the Sellafield plant. The Taoiseach has, on numerous occasions, raised with the British Prime Minister Ireland's opposition to the Sellafield operations, including the MOX plant, and has called for its closure. Only last week, at a meeting between the Taoiseach and the Prime Minister, this issue was raised, among other matters.
The Government's concerns about Sellafield are regularly followed up by officials of my Department and the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland at meetings of the UK-Ireland contact group on radioactivity matters. This group comprises officials of my Department and the RPII and officials from the relevant UK Government Departments and agencies. It meets twice a year and provides a further opportunity to pursue Ireland's concerns about Sellafield.
In addition to face to face meetings with UK Ministers and ongoing correspondence with them on Sellafield related issues, I have raised our concerns about the nuclear industry and related activities at every available opportunity on the international stage, in the EU, in Paris at the International Energy Agency, the OSPAR Convention and the United Nations in New York. I have also developed links with like-minded countries in OSPAR, including, in particular, the Nordic countries, as I stated before, which generally share our concerns about nuclear reprocessing activities, such as those carried out at Sellafield, and about discharges of radioactive materials into the marine environment.
I have built very strong personal relationships with key Ministers in some of these countries. For instance, and most recently on 17 December 2001, following the general election and change of Government in Norway, I met the new Norwegian Minister for the Environment in Dublin and briefed him on our assessment of the issues surrounding Sellafield and the MOX plant with particular focus on the legal aspects.
This week, I attended a meeting of the British-Irish Council environment sectoral group in Edinburgh. As Senators will be aware, this was established under the Good Friday Agreement as a forum for members to exchange information and to discuss, consult and use best endeavours to reach agreement on matters of mutual interest. The environment group is one of a number of sectoral groups within the BIC and is chaired by Mr. Meacher. Ireland and the Isle of Man have taken the lead within this group on Sellafield and radioactive waste.
The group, at its meeting this week, held an initial exchange of views on a draft discussion paper on this subject which had been prepared jointly by Ireland and the Isle of Man. It was agreed that the subject would be further discussed at its next meeting in the autumn. The inclusion of Sellafield on the agenda of the BIC is of significant importance to Ireland as it gives us a valuable opportunity to discuss the genuine concerns which Sellafield creates for Ireland and some other BIC members.
The Government's strong opposition to the Sellafield MOX plant has been repeatedly conveyed to UK Ministers and departmental officials over the years and in its detailed responses to the five separate rounds of public consultations held by British authorities and Ministers since 1997. As I mentioned before, the Taoiseach also raised Ireland's opposition to this project with the British Prime Minister. We were totally dismayed and angered by the UK Government's decision of October last to give the go-ahead to that plant. At a time of heightened tensions around the world arising from terrorist threats, I find the UK Government's decision effectively to expand operations at Sellafield difficult to fathom.
The Government is determined to prevent the full commissioning of the MOX plant. We see no justification, economic or otherwise, for it. The MOX plant will effectively perpetuate nuclear reprocessing activities at Sellafield and add to the level of radioactive discharges into the marine environment. It will increase the volume of worldwide shipments of nuclear fuels with obvious additional volume of traffic through the Irish Sea, thus pose an unacceptable safety and security risk as well as the potential for a major accident or terrorist attack.
We have initiated legal action against the UK under the OSPAR Convention in regard to the MOX plant. The legal action began in June 2001 and relates to the fact that the UK, on grounds of commercial confidentiality, withheld pertinent information essential to assessing the economic justification of the MOX plant. This action is proceeding on schedule and an arbitration tribunal is in the process of being established under the OSPAR Convention to consider the case.
In parallel with the legal action under OSPAR, the Government has also initiated legal pro ceedings against the UK under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea to stop the operation of the MOX plant. Ireland requested the establishment of an international arbitration tribunal under this UN convention to resolve the dispute.
As it was not expected that Ireland's case would be heard by the tribunal until the latter part of this year, Ireland requested the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea, ITLOS, to order a legally binding injunction on the UK to stop the commissioning of the MOX plant and associated shipments of nuclear material. On 3 December 2001, the ITLOS delivered its judgment on the injunction request. While it did not agree to the implementation of the injunction measures requested by Ireland, it imposed obligations of co-operation on the UK vis-à-vis exchange of information and construction of appropriate measures to prevent pollution of the marine environment, pending the hearing of the substantive case by the arbitration tribunal. The Government will also be considering what steps, if any, to take on challenging before the European Court of Justice the UK's decision that the MOX plant is economically justified.
That is the background to the Government's concerns about Sellafield and the actions being taken by it to end its operations. The Government will continue to pursue every realistic means, diplomatic and legal, to bring about a cessation of operations at Sellafield. Clearly it will not be an easy task, but our actions demonstrate that we are fully committed to the process. As in the past, we will continue to harness the support of like minded countries, which have concerns about the Sellafield operations, to maintain a high level of awareness and understanding across the broadest possible spectrum.