Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 141: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the level of nuclear discharge emanating from British Nuclear Fuels Limited plants in the UK; the progress that has been made by the Irish authorities with BNFL on this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7201/07]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 531: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the latest evidence which he has available to him of emission levels from Sellafield and of incidents or shortcomings that have raised the risk of contamination occurring; and his assessment of the risk status to Ireland of the Sellafield plant. [7589/07]

Ivor Callely (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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Question 541: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the work carried out by the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland with regard to contamination of Irish marine life caused by radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea; the levels of technetium 99 found in seaweed and fish; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7204/07]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 141, 531 and 541 together.

In 1998 the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic agreed to a strategy to reduce discharges of radioactivity. The so-called Sintra Strategy requires all Contracting Parties to the Convention to prevent pollution of the maritime area from ionizing radiation through progressive and substantial reductions of discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive substances with the ultimate aim of achieving concentrations in the environment that are near background levels for naturally occurring radioactive substances and close to zero for artificial radioactive substances. A date of 2020 was set for the achievement of these targets. Ireland and the UK are among the Contracting Parties to the Convention.

In 2006 the Radioactive Substances Committee (RSC) of OSPAR undertook an evaluation of the extent to which the reductions in radioactive discharges required under the Sintra Strategy were being achieved. This evaluation concluded that, for the nuclear sector as a whole, there was no clear evidence that discharges were either increasing or decreasing and that more data was required before firm conclusions could be drawn.

In the specific case of discharges of radioactivity to the Irish Sea, the principal source is the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield. These discharges, which are authorised by the UK's Environment Agency, peaked in the 1970s and early 1980s. Subsequently, as a result of the introduction of modern abatement technologies, discharges were significantly reduced. Strong pressure by the Irish and Norwegian Governments resulted in further modifications to reduce the discharge of technetium-99 to the Irish Sea from 2004 onwards. The most recent data from the north east coastline for technetium-99 in seawater shows a further reduction following the implementation of these technologies at Sellafield.

The RSC evaluation also considered the extent to which discharges from the Sellafield reprocessing facility had been reduced since 1998. The evaluation showed that in the period up to 2005 the pattern is uneven. While the discharges of some radionuclides have decreased over these years, the discharges of plutonium have shown a statistically significant increase.

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland implements a comprehensive programme of monitoring of radioactivity in the Irish marine environment so as to assess the level of radiation exposure to the Irish population resulting from discharges to the marine environment. The monitoring programme involves the routine sampling and testing for radioactivity of fish, shellfish, seawater, seaweed and marine sediments. Fish and shellfish are sampled from commercial landings at east coast ports and major ports from the south and west coasts. Seawater and marine sediments are routinely collected from coastal locations and from the western Irish Sea with particular emphasis being placed on sampling at the north east ports of Carlingford, Clogherhead and Howth due to the relative proximity to Sellafield.

The highest annual mean concentration of Tc-99 in fish from northeast ports was 0.5 Bq/kg (1998). In 2005 the equivalent figure was 0.1 Bq/kg fresh. The highest concentration of Tc-99 in seaweed from Balbriggan was 7,985 Bq/kg dry (November, 1997). The mean concentration for 2003 was 2,012 Bq/kg dry.

Since the inception of this monitoring programme in the early nineteen eighties, the RPII annually assess the radiation doses to notional typical and heavy fish consumers. These assessments have shown that year on year the exposure to the Irish population has fallen steadily until about 2000 and has remained relatively constant since then and the current levels of anthropogenic radioactivity in the Irish environment do not pose a significant risk to human health.

The Sellafield site holds large volumes of all types of radioactive waste in many forms including very significant volumes of liquid High Level Waste. The UK Regulator, the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) recognises that the storage of this volume of liquid high level waste does not represent best practice and imposed a condition on the operator that will reduce this to a small buffer stock by 2015. Progress is being made in the reduction of the liquid volumes in compliance with the schedule imposed by the Regulator but there remains a large liquid volume of HLW awaiting treatment. With very large volumes of radioactive waste held on site, the need for safety, waste reduction and environmentally acceptable decommissioning programmes is paramount. While there have been no recent significant accidents or incidents that have resulted in the escape of radioactive contamination to the environment, the long standing poor safety record highlighted by the THORP incident in 2005, the high volumes of treated and untreated waste on site, the continuing generation of additional waste through ongoing reprocessing operations and the consequent radioactive discharges to the marine environment underscore the reasons the Government continues to regard the existence of Sellafield as an unacceptable risk to Ireland.