Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We may have. We were not told. There were no warnings or checks. I like to think it was funny but I lost two first cousins who were herding those sheep. They had the most terrible deaths. We were all told about the Cooley Mountains at the time but in the fullness of time, we found out that the most highly radioactive sheep were in the Knockmealdown Mountains. The thing literally melted out of their eyes and people may have consumed the meat. People were using open water supplies but we were not told to be careful. People were not told not to drink it. We were behind the game. This is my point about this Bill, namely, we need to be ever vigilant. We cannot allow anything like that to ever happen again. Government agencies must up the ante both here and in our sister countries in Europe and insist that the most rigorous testing is used in these plants. We should make observations because it is in the interests of our people, animal life and environment. That happened. I lived through that time. Thankfully, I was in the car for most of the day when it happened so I might not have inhaled much of the ash but it was very serious. It was quarter or half an inch thick and we should consider what the results were in respect of sheep and beef cattle grazing the land. We had no idea the impact it had on the wildlife and never will.

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