Ray Butler (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome last week's report from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment on the impact of a potential nuclear accident at Sellafield. The report outlined four scenarios with an estimated loss to this country of between €4 billion to €161 billion. In the worst-case scenario, the impacts would extend to 60 years, though the most substantial economic impacts arise in the first 30 years.

Four new plants are set to come on stream in Britain. I have done some homework on them and if any of the Senators are interested I have maps showing where they will be located. The development at Hinkley Point on the Celtic Sea has been given planning permission. There is one in Oldbury, one in Wales, Heysham and Sellafield. Chinese investors and French companies are involved in a €16 billion investment. The British taxpayer is looking for cheap electricity. It looks like Montgomery Burns in Britain because it is all about the shareholder and not the people.

We need the Minister to come to the House for a debate on what the Government is doing. Is it monitoring this situation, including the security issues? The British Government has failed to live up to scratch when it came to Sellafield and in the process badly letting down the Irish people.We have a huge issue here with four new plants coming on stream. There are seven new nuclear plants in France, four of which are up and running with the other three coming online in the near future. These are in our back garden. There they are for everybody to see. They are going to come down by the Irish Sea and the Celtic Sea and they are going to be in our back garden. What are we doing about it? We have to go over and see what is going on and have our input. As far as I can see, we are doing nothing about it at the moment. It is being hidden away. Do we start to go back and issue iodine tablets again? We have seen what Sellafield did and the destruction it wreaked on the Irish Sea. Certain areas were decimated when all of that poison was leaked into the Irish Sea. Let us not make the same mistakes again. Let us go and see what is going on.