Ireland to "harness support" within EU on UK nuclear sites

REMOVING the threat to Ireland from Sellafield and other nuclear installations on Britain's west coast will involve "persuading one of the world's major industrial nations to forgo over a quarter of its energy source", according to Ms Avril Doyle.

Ms Doyle, Minister of State for Energy and at the Taoiseach's Department and a member of the ministerial task force on Sellafield, said at the weekend that there should be "no illusions about the magnitude of the task in hand", but she declared: "It can, and will be, achieved".

However, she conceded that it would take time. "It won't happen overnight, it won't happen by slogans and demonstrations. It will be achieved by years of consistent, relentless, persuasive action by all of the offices of a sovereign government."

In a significant broadening of Ireland's stance on Sellafield, Ms Doyle said the Government would be attempting to harness the support, "country by country, party by party and interest by interest, from our European neighbours" for its campaign.

"This Government is committed to doing everything realistically possible in thwarting the expansion of the UK's nuclear industry and in pursuing the closure of existing nuclear facilities, particularly Sellafield and the older Magnox reactors", she declared, the case made last Friday by her fellow Minister of State for Energy, Mr Emmet Stagg, at the public inquiry in Cumbria into plans by Nirex UK for a £195 million rock laboratory, she said the Government "will also vigorously oppose the construction of an underground waste dump at Sellafield."

Ms Doyle was addressing a conference on Sellafield organised by the Mayor of Drogheda, Alderman Fergus O'Dowd. She said that Ireland was "opposed to any expansion of this industry". She made it clear that the Government's decision to call for the closure of Sellafield and Britain's ageing Magnox nuclear reactors was "a political decision" which was based not so much on "measurable risk" but on the widespread view among Irish people that any nuclear risk was unacceptable.

The ministerial task force was "the first comprehensive and co ordinated initiative taken by any government to date to address the problems caused by Sellafield. It illustrates the Government's serious intent to pursue all realistic and effective courses of action to safeguard the Irish people."

But while the Government was committed to taking legal action over Sellafield, if a realistic case could be shown to exist, "it cannot initiate such action without a firm legal case based on sound scientific evidence", Ms Doyle conceded. "Worse than taking a case would be to take a case prematurely," she warned.

However, she pledged that counsel for the State would support the four Dundalk residents who have been given leave by the High Court to take a case against British Nuclear Fuels Ltd in resisting an appeal by BNFL in the Supreme Court before the end of this month and, depending on the outcome, might even indemnify them.

Mr Jim Fitzsimons MEP (FF, Leinster) said the British government had shown "scant regard" for Ireland's objections to the newly commissioned THORP plant at Sellafield, which were "based on well founded environmental and public health concerns", and he wanted the Government to put it at the top of its EU agenda.

Dr Rosaleen Corcoran, public health director with the North Eastern Health Board, was challenged by several of those attending the Drogheda conference when she concluded that there was no scientific evidence to show a causal link between Sellafield and clusters of cancer found on Ireland's east coast.

Other speakers at the conference included Mr John Bowler, of Greenpeace Ireland; Mr Alan Gillis MEP (FG, Leinster), and Dr Chris Busby, spokesman on nuclear issues for the Green Party in Britain.