Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I join Senator O'Toole in calling for a debate on energy supply, including nuclear energy. As the Senator noted, it is anticipated that 95% of Ireland's energy will come from abroad. A debate on this issue would be timely given that last week the British Government announced its plans for a new generation of nuclear power plants. We cannot avoid the elephant in the room in this regard. For this reason, we must consider the possibility of using nuclear power. Ireland has the disbenefit of being fewer than 100 miles from Sellafield, which The Observer newspaper describes as the most dangerous place in Europe. While it is necessary to debate the potentially negative impact of nuclear energy, we also need to be clear that we will potentially take energy from this source from the United Kingdom. We must examine, therefore, whether we are willing to build nuclear reactors here.