Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach has responded on what the Government has been doing about this. The advice given to the Government and the decision it took on the closure of Sellafield was to proceed through the United Nations, which was the incorrect approach. What is the status of the Government's case against Britain for the closure of Sellafield?

I hope the national emergency plan will never be tested. Following its updating, as has been pointed out by Deputy Timmins on a number of occasions, when so many Departments and committees are involved and when everybody is in charge, nobody is in charge. God forbid it would ever happen, but in the same way former Mayor of New York, Mr. Rudolph Guiliani, took charge after 11 September, would it not be more feasible, as indicated by the Emergency Planning Society report, to have one central control unit in charge of such a national emergency? In a survey seven out of ten people felt the Government was ill prepared for a national emergency. Is it not the case that no independent audit of the national emergency plan has been done to verify that it would work in practice? Is the Taoiseach concerned about the recent comments by a representative of fire fighters that they do not have sufficient equipment and resources to deal with something like this? Will the Taoiseach indicate when the Minister, Deputy Roche, will be in a position to take the case for Government to Europe for closure of Sellafield?

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