Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. McGarry for her presentation and I thank the panel for attending. Dr. McGarry stated that there are no health risks and if that were to stack up it would be welcome. The concern I have is that there is a health risk and that there is also a risk to the food industry on this island.

Globally there seems to be a move away from nuclear power but, according to the map produced by the RPII, the Brits clearly have big plans in terms of nuclear power. There are five proposed nuclear plants on the western side of Wales and England according to the map. This means five of the proposed eight plants would be on the west coast.

A report on Sellafield was done by the UK National Audit Office. It stated in respect of Sellafield that some of the older tanks on the site have deteriorated so much that their contents pose a significant risk to the people and the environment. That was a reference to England and Scotland, not to our island to the west. The report raised several other concerns in respect of Sellafield.

The Government decided along the British Government to commission a report six years ago. It was decided that the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly would carry out the exercise. We paid somewhere in excess of €4 million for the report but we have not seen it. The Dáil has not been allowed to see it. I am unsure whether the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or the RPII have seen it. I hope the institute has seen it but, if not, the Government should be asking why not and why it is not being made available to the Members of Parliament in this State. All we have seen is a sanitised version, what was called an edited version, which was published. I have concerns about this and about having an edited or censored version of anything because "edited" can mean anything. We have not seen it. The people who live in this State have paid for it. The commissioning of the report was decided by a parliamentary body representing the people of this island and made up of all the parties in the Dáil, not only the Government. It decided to have the report on Sellafield carried out but that report has not seen the light of day and there has not been one word or peep about it.

I am concerned at the delegates' statement that all they can do is produce a generic model of the reactors being built, including the five on the western seaboard of Wales and England. We do not know the scale of these facilities. Do we even know the type of reactor that will be used or anything else about them? For us to say we are satisfied that everything is in order is decidedly risky from a public health perspective.

I also have serious concerns in regard to the food industry. We all recall the images of the donkey and cart that were used to promote Ireland as a tourist destination in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Those images portrayed a land of make-believe. We are trying to do the same thing now in respect of the food industry - convincing people who purchase from us on foreign markets that we are a lovely clean island. The fact we are so close to Sellafield and even closer to some of the proposed new plants, particularly the Wylfa plant that will be located near Holyhead, poses a significant risk. The risk is both substantive and also more intangible in that it presents a risk to our reputation and image. We are good at creating images and reputations, but if some of the countries to which we are exporting large quantities of food were to examine these developments, they might not have such rosy picture of the situation.