I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 151 together.
My main concerns in relation to Sellafield and British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, include the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel at the THORP plant at the Sellafield complex, the ageing Magnox reactors at the site, the facilities for the storage of high level radioactive liquid waste and proposals for establishing a Mox Plant at the site. I also strenuously objected to proposals by UK Nirex Ltd for a nuclear waste repository near the Sellafield site.
Since I assumed responsibility for nuclear matters, there have been numerous contacts with the British authorities in relation to Ireland's concerns regarding their nuclear industry by myself and officials of my Department. Specifically in the past six months I have highlighted the following:
I wrote in December 1996 to the relevant UK Ministers expressing my concerns and requested that they use powers available to them to order the immediate and complete cessation of the discharge of technetium-99 from Sellafield into the Irish Sea. The response up to now has been that they are not prepared to do so; however the UK Environment Agency will be obliged to consider technetium-99 as part of BNFL's application for a revised discharge authorisation.
In February I met at my request, with the British Ambassador. I conveyed to her the Government's concerns about the recent reports of incidents at the Sellafield complex, our concerns about the possibility of an accident at the high level waste tanks at Sellafield, which the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland has identified as a major accident risk, and our objections to proposed further developments by UK Nirex Ltd of a nuclear waste respository near Sellafield.