Vol. 405 No. 8
14 Mr. McCartan asked the Minister for Energy if his attention has been drawn to the decision taken at the conference held in Liverpool in July by CORE regarding plans for the development of the THORP plant at the Sellafield Nuclear Reprocessing Plant urging the Irish Government to reconsider their decision not to proceed with legal action against the British authorities over repeated pollution from the Sellafield plant; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
As I have indicated previously to the House, the advice available to me is that there is at present no scope for taking action in the courts. Should such scope be shown, I would certainly advise the Government to take legal action.
I am disappointed with the volte face of the party of which the Minister is a member and he has referred to them in earlier questions. If he says there is no case, can he explain why his spokesperson on energy previously in this House, the former Deputy Pat O'Malley, constantly argued along with myself and others that there was ample basis — there still is — for international legal action to be taken by Ireland against Britain for the abuse of the Irish Sea and our environment?
Deputy McCartan is a Member of this House and if he can provide me with the grounds of such a case I will be very happy to receive them, but I have been in this Department now since July 1989 and I have not yet received such details from Deputy McCartan or from any other person.
I take the point, but the Minister will appreciate that the job and responsibility are his. Will he not confirm that he and his officials have had lengthy meetings with representatives of the Greenpeace organisation who have laid before him copious documentation outlining the legal basis in international treaty and otherwise whereby Ireland could take legal action readily and easily with no difficulty whatsoever? What is his response to those representations and to other groups like CORE, referred to in the question, who now consider our Government to be shilly-shallying, totally ambivalent and not prepared to challenge our nearest neighbour on the way in which they are abusing our environment and the Irish Sea?
Deputy McCartan may not have been here a few minutes ago when Deputy Allen was here and brief reference was made to this. For the sake of the record I had better say, in case there is a misunderstanding about the nature of the advice provided by Greenpeace to my Department, that Greenpeace gave my predecessors two documents concerning court action. Neither document gave grounds for optimism as they agreed with the advice available to me which is that there is little effective scope for court action. As I informed the House, I have made arrangements for discussions to take place involving my Department, the Attorney General's Office and Greenpeace to consider possible other courses of action. I did that at a meeting I had with Greenpeace about a year ago and that meeting has not taken place yet. I offered Greenpeace the opportunity of coming in and explaining the case they felt they had to the Attorney General, and he has looked at their documents. They agreed the documents they submitted did not provide the basis for an effective court action. I do not see what more I can do to nail this down. I have continuously said that if it can be shown that effective court action can be taken I will be very pleased to make a recommendation in the matter to the Government, but I cannot do so on the basis of not having a case.
Can I speak on Question No. 27 which is on the same issue? Is the Minister not taking that one?
No, we must stick with the question before us, Deputy.
Given that the Minister indicates he is neither willing nor prepared to take the British Government to court, notwithstanding the commitments by a previous Minister for Energy not only in this House but in his own constituency of Dublin North, how does the Minister propose to protect the interests of the Irish people, particularly on the east coast, given that the discharge of liquid radioactive waste from Sellafield into the Irish Sea has increased dramatically in recent years? Will the Minister not agree that the increase of the discharge contradicts the commitments made by BNFL to reduce discharges to zero levels?
I will ask the Deputy to read the NEB's annual reports in regard to radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea before he makes wild and inaccurate statements as he is doing here now. They certainly have not increased. They have decreased very substantially. I am not defending Sellafield, I am just stating the facts. I do not see what other way I can handle this matter of being asked by Deputies here to take a case. I do not want to make a fool of Ireland. If that is what the Deputy is suggesting, what is the case? Deputy McCartan is a senior lawyer, and if he is continuously raising this issue here he must believe that there is a case. The highest legal advice available to me is that there is not a case. I would be happy to have somebody present a case to me and I will take it.
Order. A final question, Deputy McCartan.
I will certainly take up the challenge the Minister has levelled in my direction. If nothing is to happen with regard to Sellafield as it stands, will the Minister accept that when the THORP Plant opens, the traffic of nuclear waste to and from the plant on the Irish Sea will dramatically increase? Will the Minister give an undertaking to the House that at least that matter will be raised with our nearest partner with regard to what safeguards will be introduced and secured and in the event of failure to negotiate, there is a basis open to the Minister to take legal action internationally?
I assure the Deputy that the Government's concern about expanded reprocessing at Sellafield, including the operation of the THORP plant, has repeatedly been conveyed directly to the British Government.
Have we got any response?
I have conveyed the Government's concern directly to John Wakeham, the British Minister for Energy. I have raised it at every meeting of the European Community Energy Council and when I was acting as President I arranged that the Secretary of the Department who was sitting in in my place while I was chairing the meeting would raise it; so it has been raised on every possible occasion. The British are not in any doubt but they are not responding to the requests from this country.
There is your basis for legal action — their failure to respond.
It has not been represented to me that that is sufficient ground for a legal case.
Read the EURATOM agreement.
I have read it. Clearly the greatest avenue available to us is to work through the machinery of the European Community and get support there for the stand we are taking. Public opinion throughout the Community is growing in support of the type of stance Ireland has been taking against nuclear energy. In time, that opinion will win out and will sway Government action in the Community states where, as we know, we have very strong pro-nuclear countries. This is not an easy thing to win, but it can be won through convincing argument emanating from ordinary people through the Community, because the argument at Government level has been continuously rejected by the British, the Germans, the French and others.
Question No. 15.
A Cheann Comhairle——
Question No. 15 has been called and will be responded to.
