THE DEPARTMENT of Health has decided not to reissue householders with iodine tablets. Packets of the tablets were distributed to every home in the State back in 2002 at a cost of about €2 million and it was intended that they would be taken in the event of a major nuclear accident.
However, Minister for Health Mary Harney announced yesterday that the tablets would not be issued again. She said the decision had been taken on the basis of expert risk-management advice.
In a statement she said that Ireland was the only country to issue iodine tablets in 2002 - in the aftermath of 9/11 - and that it was now recognised that the risks which might have existed then had been substantially reduced.
"The decision not to reissue iodine tablets has been taken on the basis of the low risk of a radio-active iodine release and in the context of best international practice, which does not recommend general household distribution other than in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear reactor," she added.
The closest nuclear power station to Ireland is the Wylfa plant in north Wales, which is 114km from the Irish coastline.
The decision to issue iodine tablets in mid-2002 followed a radio discussion in 2001 when the then minister of state with responsibility for nuclear safety, Joe Jacob, outlined the State's planned response to an accident or an act of sabotage at Sellafield.
The iodine tablets were a key part of government strategy, Mr Jacob indicated, adding that the Department of Health would have stocks. However, there was controversy when it took months for the tablets to be distributed.
It emerged in 2004 that the tablets would be ineffective in the event of a nuclear incident at Sellafield as they were only effective when taken in response to a leak of the radioactive isotope iodine 131, which Sellafield had stopped handling years earlier.
In March 2005, when the tablets were about to go out of date, the Department of Health placed advertisements in newspapers advising the public that they should not be thrown out, as tests showed they were still effective. It also announced the setting up a group to review the continued use of iodine tablets in the Republic. Following this review it has been decided that they will not be distributing the tablets again.
Householders who still have the tablets are advised to dispose of them as normal household waste and not to remove them from the packaging they were supplied in.
Fine Gael's health spokesman, Dr James Reilly, said it seemed sensible not to reissue the tablets. "It begs the question as to why they were ever issued in the first place. It seemed like it was a farcical knee-jerk reaction to the fact that the government had no contingency plans for a nuclear emergency at the time," he said. "And the unfortunate thing is that they cost the taxpayer millions."
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea said recently that householders would soon be issued with a booklet on how to respond in the event of a range of emergencies, including a nuclear incident. It appears that there will be no mention of iodine tablets in the booklet.