Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The RPII has been very active in promoting its plan through its literature, which I have seen. A public information leaflet on what to do in a nuclear emergency was distributed to all households a few years ago. A new print run of the revised leaflet is to be distributed to public libraries and citizens' information centres. The full emergency plan has been disseminated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. There is no need to circulate the entire plan among the public since many parts are very detailed and technical, but it is available where necessary.

In passing, I will mention a debate that I heard last night. I have discussed the matter and raised it formally with the British Government on many occasions. We will continue the fight for the safe closure of Sellafield, which poses an unacceptable threat on the grounds of pollution, poor safety and the potentially devastating impact of a serious incident. We have initiated legal proceedings in two separate fora regarding the Sellafield MOX plant, under the OSPAR Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Judge Advocate General issued an opinion regarding the European Court of Justice ruling against us last January, which we continue to dispute, with a full legal team working on it. The national plan has been audited, tested and validated in line with best practice, and we have used very high-ranking experts, details of whom the Minister, Deputy Roche, has provided in recent days.

I agree with Deputy Sargent that none of these issues should be taken lightly. Nowadays there is always a risk of terrorist attacks, including some that one can hardly envisage. For those reasons, we must be careful. We will continue helping, in every way possible, the various organisations and individuals that have assisted Chernobyl, particularly Adi Roche.

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