Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 74: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children the use the iodine tablets which were distributed to each household here would be if there was an explosion at the Sellafield plant involving the highly active liquid waste which are stored in tanks awaiting vitrification. [16523/06]

Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Iodine tablets offer protection from radioactive iodine of which iodine-131 is normally the most significant in terms of radiation dose. Radioactive iodine is no longer produced at Sellafield since the closure of the Calder Hall reactors in March 2003 and there is no iodine-131 stored in the HASTs (highly active storage tanks). An accident at Sellafield would not result in a release of radioactive iodine and the use of iodine tablets as a counter measure in such an instance would not be indicated.