This is an important and timely motion. The Fine Gael frontbench considered a number of other issues but this is the most pressing. In the time available, I will outline the background to this case, the political objections to Sellafield-THORP, the Government parties' political commitments and the purpose behind this motion, to resolve the impasse between the Government and the County Louth residents group.
It is only a few weeks since I was appointed Fine Gael spokesman on public enterprise. I have no particular expertise, experience or background in this area but having studied all the papers I could on this matter in the past fortnight, I believe the public owes a considerable debt of gratitude to the four residents from Dundalk and their legal representatives for taking this case on behalf of the people, given the widespread public and political support for the case. They have nothing to gain should they win the case but they face personal disaster in the present circumstances should they lose. We should pay tribute to their courage and resilience since the first hearing in the High Court in 1994 as it is the most inspired form of civic spiritedness one could find anywhere.
This area of nuclear energy and power is the technology of the 1950s and 1960s and with the knowledge we have in the 1990s the question of splitting the atom is acknowledged to be dangerous technology and outdated. Its only relevant application in the future will be military, which is regrettable. In 1956 four Magnox reactors, which are now over 40 years old and represent a risk, were built at Windscale and are in the Calder Hall unit of the Sellafield complex. Its location on the west coast of Cumbria is a mere 100 miles to the east of where we stand, the most densely populated part of this country along the east coast. In March 1994, the Stg £1.85 million THORP construction opened. There was no public inquiry and no environmental impact study was carried out on that development.
On the NIREX development, I commend the former Minister of State, Deputy Stagg, who represented the Government. I read the Seanad debates on this matter which took place in the past 18 months. As a member of the last Government, I am proud of the efforts Deputy Stagg and Deputy Gilmore made on this issue, of which I was only recently made aware. A substantial and concerted effort resulted in NIREX not getting the go ahead and I regret similar approaches were not made in the 1970s and 1980s and at the time THORP was commissioned.
THORP is one of two such reprocessing plants of spent fuel extracting uranium and plutonium, the other being in France. Waste from the worldwide nuclear power industry, including Japan, the Far East, the United States and so on, is being brought to the doorstep of the people and to the Irish Sea. With one quarter of the UK's electricity energy being sourced from the nuclear industry, it is here to stay.
Whatever one's view on nuclear energy, it must be seen in the context of the serious accident in March 1979 at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and on 25 April 1986 at Chernobyl. We all know about the devastation in terms of congenital deformities which children are born with and the cancerous developments and health hazards for those living in close proximity to these disasters. Because there is no economic benefit to Ireland and because of the potential risk of accident, this is something which the people and the Government must oppose. The risk of an accident must be highlighted. There is a possibility of human error, technical failure, failure during transportation and storage and in the cooling plant. There is no technology for the safe long-term storage of the output of nuclear energy because we do not know what the position will be in 100 or 200 years' time. The accumulation of nuclear waste is something which must worry us all.
Radioactivity does not respect national borders or territorial boundaries as we know from the effects and fall out from Chernobyl. There are no assurances that I or this House can get from British Nuclear Fuels which will satisfy us that there will be a future state of knowledge which will indicate that present technology is safe and foolproof or that there is no risk from an accident.
The basis of the legal case taken by the residents group is sound. Their hallmark decision in winning the right of jurisdiction originally in the High Court where they were allowed a plenary summons and subsequently the Justice Barrington decision on 24 October are landmark decisions. This allows a basis for a substantive case to be taken against British Nuclear Fuels. There is a history of mismanagement and accidents, all of which may not have been fully reported. I call on the Minister to set in place a proper communication system between the Irish and British Governments for the free flow of information as the RPII cannot monitor Sellafield directly.
I appeal to the Government to ask the European Commission to review the operation of the Magnox reactors to see if they meet EU basic safety standards under article 35 of the Euratom Treaty. I call on the Government, leaving aside the court case which is the subject of this motion, to utilise the Paris Convention on the prevention of pollution from land based sources, pursue the opinions under it and to put in place a proper transmission system for the monitoring of information on Sellafield.
I draw the House's attention to a debate in the Seanad on 30 October 1996 where the former Labour Senator, Pat Magner, moved a motion less than a week after the Supreme Court judgment, to which I referred. The motion welcomes the court's decision and takes note of the Government's policy. What is unusual about the debate was that Fianna Fáil tabled an amendment which I am pleased the Government accepted. I read meticulously the contributions of Senators, many of whom became Fianna Fáil Deputies. They gave glowing support to STAD and the case and should now exert the maximum pressure on the Government to support the case. As part of my research for this matter, I met the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland. I refer to the report on Radioactivity Monitoring of the Irish Marine Environment 1993-95. On page 23 there is a table of all the radioactivity and types of discharges of nucleates from Sellafield — an admission of discharges into the Irish Sea. I was amazed this has been allowed to continue. Not being a scientist, a reading of the risk estimates and conclusions on pages 16 and 17 of that report did not at all assure me as to there being a safe radiation dose nor did it reassure me on all the consequent repercussions for the Irish Sea whether in tourism, swimming, fishing, and natural amenity, leaving aside altogether the human health environment, of breathing, eating and so on. On that reading I became more rather than less fearful and found the RPII an unambiguous opponent and critic of Sellafield. The large accumulation of radioactive waste being stored here in 21 separate tanks causes me the greatest distress. We really must become serious about this.
There was a very non-party political, non-partisan tenor to the debate in the Seanad. I do not wish to inject a partisan element into this debate. The reason for my tabling this motion was that there appeared to be a clear impasse between the residents' group and the Government. My purpose was not to score political points but to get that rapport back on the rails and the Government fully committed to the case leading to a successful prosecution.
There has been much cynicism voiced about politicians in recent weeks. It has been exacerbated by the abandonment of freely entered into pre-election commitments. To preserve the collective credibility of politicians it is important that this House vigilantly monitors the outcome of promises made.
At the launch of the Fianna Fáil election manifesto their environmental and ecological policy document read:
In Government Fianna Fáil will ensure that the case taken by the Dundalk residents is fully funded and, if required, appealed through the higher courts. In Government Fianna Fáil will provide the financial and scientific resources to comprehensively research the effects on health and safety in Ireland of the operation of Sellafield et al. Fianna Fáil in Government will vigorously pursue politically and legally all avenues to have Sellafield and her sister stations shut.
Those are not my words. It was not that the Louth residents group went knocking on the door of Fianna Fáil with a begging bowl, but Fianna Fáil approached it with support. It was a voluntary organisation engaging in its own research, through MacGuill and Company, voluntary fund raising and so on.
The most invidious and unacceptable aspect of this overall problem — following a recent Question Time in the House — is that there is a public perception that the State is fully funding this case, so that now that association is unable to raise money voluntarily. That Fianna Fáil commitment was given freely and unambiguously. As part of the wider Fianna Fáil manifesto, the following was said:
Fianna Fáil in Government will ensure that the case taken by the Dundalk residents is fully funded and, if required, appealed through the higher courts.
There was no possibility of any misunderstanding about those issues.
I refer to the amendment moved in the Seanad by Senator Michael Mulcahy calling on the Government to agree in principle to funding the STAD case against BNFL in the courts and to enter immediately into negotiations with the STAD group to ensure the Government is removed as a defendant in the case, thus removing the outstanding obstacle to the Government funding the case.
There are many things that can and should be done in this case. Actions taken by the last Government should be acknowledged, including the irradiation nuclear fuel motion tabled at the International Maritime Organisation, the reform of the Harbours Act to prohibit vessels with nuclear fuels on board from coming in and out of our ports and the White Paper on Foreign Policy of last year which included a clear commitment on Sellafield.
The previous Government took this issue so seriously it established a ministerial task force to deal with it. From my experience as a former Cabinet Minister, there is no substitute for having a Cabinet Minister with responsibility for an issue at the Cabinet table. The Department of Finance will be against every proposal — that is always its stance — the Attorney General will have his case and one must convince party leaders and others to make things happen. I say this with no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, doing his best in impossible circumstances but a Cabinet Minister should be dealing with this debate. I would be quite happy to see Deputy Jacob elevated to the Cabinet but it is not satisfactory in the power-broking manner in which the Cabinet works in the case of all Governments for a Minister of State to be dealing with it.
The then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Howlin, worked with Ministers of State, Deputies Stagg and Gilmore during his tenure of office. In relation to our commitment I quote from a letter sent by the then Minister, Deputy Howlin, to MacGuill and Company, the solicitors representing LRG on 3 June as follows:
I wish to confirm that I am willing to propose to Government that the existing offer of assistance of up to £100,000 towards the cost of those research proposals already identified by the Department should be increased to a sum of £200,000 without pre-conditions. In addition, I will arrange a meeting at an early date between you and representatives of your clients and the ministerial committee on Sellafield. The agenda will include the position in relation to other costs arising in respect of your clients' actions as well as a mechanism for evaluating future research, including specific proposals already put by your clients to the Department.
There is quite a paper trail in relation to what that actually meant.
That takes me on to the change of Government. I have never before encountered a position in which a group insisted on having a stenographer's report of the meeting of 6 October last — following on a Question Time in the House — between the Louth residents' group, its legal representatives, the Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, some public officials, including those from the Department of Public Enterprise and the legal representative of the Government. I do not know who Mr. Daly is but, were I Minister, I certainly would not have allowed him take total control of the meeting and state what was or was not to be done. At that meeting it is fair to say the Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, outlined the position in his opening statement. Whatever is the Government's response to this motion, it is important to know what was its position a mere eight days ago. I quote from page 2 of the statement handed out at that meeting which refers to the £200,000:
This represents a full and final settlement relating to State financial support for your action against BNFL. We will need you to acknowledge this.
Let us please not hear it suggested now that the Government really meant something else.
I wish to cite the transcript because the detail is significant. The Government's offer, which was full and final, was £200,000, with no precondition that the Government be dropped as a safe co-defendant. There would be an invoicing system but not a penny more would be given. That was the Government's position which was fairly straightforward. The motion refers to "necessary financial assistance towards research and legal costs as well as the appropriate technical expertise and information". Eight research projects have been identified costing £250,000. A consultant is required for the collating of information technology — Mason's are the acknowledged consultants — and the figure for that is in the hundreds of thousands. That needs a separate item. In regard to the appointment of a health researcher, which post was advertised but not filled, we are talking about a figure of approximately £50,000 per year with the necessary backup. We are not talking about tens of millions of pounds. This is a modest but specific shopping list. There is also the cost of an engineering consultant — a Mr. Large was referred to but we are talking about a nuclear physicist — to do a report as part of the court case. Finally there is the question of legal costs which are specifically referred to and specifically excluded.
The kernel of this issue, which I will go into shortly, is that the Government either wants to win this case or it does not. The Minister of State said during Question Time that "the Sellafield situation is unacceptable". If he believes that he must want to win this case. We do not want a cheapskate case, we want a winnable case and that is what this is all about. It is not a case of getting rid of a group of residents and getting this issue out of the way for the next six months. It is about winning the case, having won the right of jurisdiction arising out of the Barrington case.
Leaving aside the opening statement which set out the Government position, when the Minister of State was asked by the individuals about what happened to the Fianna Fáil promise, he said that this was a Government decision and he had to implement it. I have heard rumours today that this motion will be accepted by the Government. I have also heard outrageous rumours that the Minister of State is being hung out to dry, that he should not have made that statement at the meeting. It is clear from the verbatim report that the Minister of State acted totally in good faith and in accordance with the Government decision. If there is to be a U-turn on the Government decision, let it be on the heads of the Government and not on the head of the hapless Minister of State who is merely passing on the messages from the Cabinet table.
The following question was asked by Mr. MacGuill:
Mr. MacGuill: So, therefore, it is now clear that this is also to be included in the £200,000 offered in full and final settlement of the State's commitment to full public funding, is that so? Minister, is that so?
Minister Jacob: That is so.
We cannot say that was not the final position. That is what was rejected by the LRG. They could not accept the £200,000 as the full and final settlement. We cannot get away from that. It could not be more explicit. The transcript goes on to detail each item to which I have referred — the health researcher, Mr. Large, the nuclear physicist, etc. On being asked about the Government promise, the Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, stated:
The position with regard to that, and I want to make it very clear, is that this has been put forward by the Government, all aspects of it. My Department and the Government has considered this whole issue comprehensively on two occasions, on three, in fact, in the last eight or nine weeks and has come to a decision and that is the decision. That is where I am coming from.
On page 33 of the transcript the Minister of State further states:
I have addressed that in the best way I can to you. I am dealing with a Government decision here. Where I am coming from here, I have sought the Government decision, I have the Government decision, I am dealing with it, I have put it in its entirety here before us.
I am fascinated to know how it is possible to reconcile those statements with any other position.
I want to quote from page 37 of the transcript where the Assistant Secretary in the Department states: "We can not expose ourselves to more than £200,000". There are many other salacious quotes I could choose from the document but I want to allow the House to debate the motion in full.
I am conscious of the fact that in putting down this motion, the House cannot debate this matter again for six months. I am not a total sceptic but I am a little cautious. The next six months are critical because there is the threat of British Nuclear Fuels engaging in counter litigation, given that it has had a year to prepare the case. It may say put up or shut up, the case may drag on and may be lost by default.
I ask the Minister of State to state specifically what he understands the words "necessary financial assistance" in the motion to mean. In other words, will it include over and above the £200,000 which would only be sufficient for research? Will it deal separately with the appointment of a health researcher, including the necessary backup, and the appointment of an information technology consultant so that information can be stored on computerised hardware and software in Dundalk? Will he indicate that it will deal with the question of the nuclear physicist's report? It must be remembered that while the State had costs awarded against it, only 20 per cent of LRG's legal costs to date have been met.
I have found the residents group to be reasonable and flexible. Even if the Minister of State did not give a damn about the case, it would be possible to save taxpayers' money by concluding that money spent should be in support of the case rather than the Government being in the position of a co-defendant.
I referred to Deputy Gormley earlier but I see Deputy Sargent is in the Chamber. I propose to share my time with Deputy Frances Fitzgerald and Deputy Sargent.
I thank the Independent Deputies. They are an assorted but friendly group of people. I wrote to them and the two Deputies present have been helpful and constructive in the interests of resolving the problems of this group. They have worked with me on this matter. This is not a cynical political motion. It is a constructive attempt to resolve a real and urgent problem. I commend the motion to the House.