FF uses advert to call for closure of Sellafield

Fianna Fβil has taken a full-page advertisement in the London Times today calling for the closure of all sections of the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing installation.

The move follows this week's challenge by the Government against the expansion of Sellafield before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg.

"From the Windscale fire in 1957 to the falsification of safety records in 2000, and the continued pollution of our air and seas, Sellafield has posed an unacceptable threat to our environment and security of these islands," says the advertisement.

Following the September 11th atrocities in the US, Sellafield now poses "a grave security risk to both our countries", says the advertisement.

Urging the British government to reverse its decision to licence the opening of Sellafield's mixed-oxide (MOX) plant, Fianna Fβil says it has "no economic or environmental justification".

"Despite having cost hundreds of millions of pounds it only has orders for 11 per cent of its production capacity. Sellafield, if left operational, will continue the pollution of our islands.

"Its continued use will mean that the Irish Sea will be turned into a nuclear fuel highway, the final destination for other nations' nuclear waste. We, the members of the Fianna Fβil Parliamentary Party, the party of government and the largest political party in Ireland, call on the British government to reverse their decision on MOX and to shut the Sellafield complex," it continues.

Today, Mr Ahern is expected to renew his call for the closure of the plant when he addresses the ╙gra Fianna Fβil conference in Kinsale, Co Cork.