Ms Marie Donnelly:

Coming as part and parcel of our recommendation to phase out fossil fuels is the need to become self-sufficient and autonomous. That means using our own natural resources, which in essence are bioenergy, wind and solar. Nuclear energy requires uranium, which we do not have in Ireland. We would need to import it. It is a scarce commodity that can be jealously guarded by those who currently have it. It can be held hostage. It is possible to store it for long periods of time, however. Access to uranium in a nuclear situation creates a question mark, one which we would have to consider. Of course, we would also have to consider spent uranium and how we dump, store and manage that as an issue. That is also a concern.

CERN is optimistic that it might get the first amount of energy out of fusion in 70 or 80 years’ time. It is a long haul there and uncertain it will be delivered within that timescale.