Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

We had a useful discussion on Committee Stage about this and a very useful meeting with the Minister's officials since then. I appreciate and welcome the attention paid by the Minister and others to radon and to implementing various measures in this regard. As the Minister said on Committee Stage, six people per week are contracting fatal cancers as a result of this issue going unchecked. We must all pay attention to it.

Since Committee Stage, there has been a very interesting and useful hearing by the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government at which representatives of various Irish NGOs made the case for a much more detailed submission under the EPSO mechanisms allowing us to engage in public consultation on the British nuclear programme. The Government has been remiss in not taking the opportunity to track that work and in not taking responsibility in this regard.

The amendments would have the same effect in terms of seeking to compel the Minister and the Department to report annually to the Oireachtas on the national radon control strategy. Amendment No. 4, the third of my three amendments, seeks ensure that the Government will be advised on the risk to Ireland from other nuclear programmes, be they military or nuclear energy programmes. I raise those two issues in order to highlight the need for us to put the focus on our national radon control strategy. I am aware of the activities of the bodies carrying out that work but the amendments seek to ensure that they will report on it to the Oireachtas. In my view, that would bestow greater import and attention on such work. The second issue is to compel the Government not to just ignore the issue of nuclear safety when it comes to neighbouring jurisdictions - be it in the context of military or nuclear energy programmes - but, rather, to assess that risk, engage in the consultation process, which we have not been doing, and to represent the Irish people in that way. That is the import of the three amendments I have presented.

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