Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Our national plan has been audited, tested and validated internationally in line with best practice. That is a continual process. On Deputy Kenny's point about co-ordination of the various organisations such as the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, the Garda and the Defence Forces, the plan sets out how these should be co-ordinated and the centre of co-ordination. Not only are these detailed in the plan but in the trial runs, the latest one being last year, the co-ordination scheme was implemented. We have followed best international practice in this.

Regarding our case, we have brought together some of the world's best experts in this field from the US and elsewhere, people who have been on both sides of this argument and who have considerable expertise in the preparation of our case. We are pressing on with our case and will continue to do so. We await the final judgement of the European Court and we have indicated clearly that we will go to the European Court of Justice and have presented a strong case that is being prepared by the Minister, the Attorney General and the team that has worked on this for us. We have made our position on this clear to the British Government. While this issue has been raised in recent days, we have been proactive and are prepared for a nuclear emergency, we have anticipated everything it is likely we would be asked to do and have applied internationally set criteria and continue to validate it against international best practice.

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