EVEN THOSE who eat the most seafood and spend the most time on and around the Irish Sea are exposed to only low levels of radioactivity every year from Sellafield, a report by the Radiological Pro-tection Institute of Ireland says.
Those who are most exposed still only receive a radiation dose of less than one unit a year, out of the 4,000 units that the average Irish person is exposed to annually, according to the report.
“The levels are very low,” said David Pollard, director of the institute’s monitoring and measurement services, “but obviously there is particular concern because of the presence of Sellafield. By doing this study we hopefully would reassure people that even for the most exposed individual, it is still a very small fraction of the dose that they would experience naturally.”
Mr Pollard said the institute had released reports before showing no health risk to the average person. But this report focused on two groups that had significant interaction with the Irish Sea; commercial fishermen who eat large amounts of fish, prawns and crab, and commercial oyster and mussel farmers who also eat large amounts of seafood.
The study involved 535 people on the northeast coast who were asked about the amount and type of seafood they ate, the amount of time spent in, on or around the sea and seashore, their handling of fishing gear and catch, and their handling of seabed sediment.
The study, conducted by the Centre for Environmental, Fisheries and Aquaculture (Cefas), showed that eating seafood and working or playing in and around the water does not present a health risk – even when done much more often than average.
About 86 per cent of the 4,000 units of radiation that the average Irish person is exposed to each year is from naturally occurring radioactivity, such as radon gas at home. A little less than 14 per cent is from medically used radiation, such as X-rays and Cat scans, and the remainder, 0.4 per cent, is from human-made radioactivity, such as from Sellafield. The international limit for public exposure to artificial radioactivity in the environment is 1,000 units a year, the institute says.
The Irish Timesrecently reported that Britain was pressing ahead with plans to build more nuclear power plants, with 11 potential sites, including two near Sellafield. The UK's department of energy and climate change said they could be operational by 2025.
Mr Pollard said the institute had no official stance on nuclear power, and did not expect the plants to cause a great rise in radioactivity in the Irish Sea.