FF hysterical about Sellafield - Ingham

The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the Fianna Fβil party have been accused of "hysteria" by Sir Bernard Ingham, the former press secretary to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

Sir Bernard, who wrote to the Taoiseach as secretary of the campaign group Supporters of Nuclear Energy (SONE), says the group took exception to the full-page "Shut Sellafield" advertisement in the London Times on November 24th.

Noting that the advertisement was paid for by the Taoiseach's political party Fianna Fβil, Sir Bernard said: "We are appalled that a governing party should behave so hysterically".

Norway, which recently allied itself with the Republic in its desire to see Sellafield shut, was also criticised, being described as maintaining "a fierce resistance to evidence refuting their claims that it [Sellafield] causes serious pollution".

In the course of a staunch criticism of the Taoiseach's stance, Sir Bernard said: "there is no evidence that Sellafield has created or continues to create a health hazard by its vastly reduced discharges. If it did, the British Government would have been forced to act against it."

Referring to "your party's hysteria", Sir Bernard said there is "no evidence whatsoever that a terrorist attack on Sellafield would 'render much of our islands uninhabitable'. I would remind you that that the world has survived the consequences of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons which put 100 times more radioactivity into the atmosphere then the Chernobyl nuclear disaster."

Sir Bernard also pointed out that "a panel of 700 scientists monitoring the consequences of Chernobyl for the UN has so far identified only 45 deaths due to it".