Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 121: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he is satisfied that the Sellafield nuclear plant will be subject to EU-wide stress tests organised at a European level in view of the concern he has expressed on this issue and not subject solely to a domestic stress test organised at a British domestic level. [19024/11]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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When I discussed nuclear safety matters with UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne, at a bilateral meeting earlier this year, I reiterated the Government's concerns about Sellafield and sought assurance that the nuclear safety stress tests, which were at that time being developed at EU level in response to the serious accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan in March, would be applied not only to the UK's power plants, but also to the Sellafield plant. The Secretary of State confirmed that this was his intention.

With the subsequent agreement of the stress test methodology at EU level in May, the UK Government again confirmed that the stress test will be applied not only to power plants, but to facilities in the nuclear fuel cycle, and that this includes Sellafield.

The European Commission and the European Nuclear Safety Regulators Group (ENSREG) developed the "stress tests" following a request from the European Council on 25 March 2011 in response to the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. The "stress tests" will be conducted initially by the licensees of the facilities, who have the prime responsibility for safety. The national regulators of the fourteen EU Member States who currently operate nuclear power plants, and those neighbouring countries who also agreed to be part of the process, will then independently review the safety assessments for facilities within their own States. These national level reports will then be peer reviewed by teams comprised of representatives of other EU nuclear safety regulators. This peer review stage is in part intended to ensure the appropriate level of robustness and objectivity is applied to the "stress test" process.

Ireland is represented on ENSREG by the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, which has contributed to the development of the "stress tests". It is intended that the stress test reports will be made public in accordance with national legislation and international obligations, provided that this does not jeopardise other interests (such as security). In the same way, it is also intended that the peer review results will be made public.

The current "stress tests" offer an opportunity to learn from what occurred at Fukushima, and to enhance nuclear safety provisions at national and international levels where necessary. In this context, we support the rigorous application of the stress tests at all nuclear facilities, transparency with regard to the results, and prompt follow-up actions where such are required to improve nuclear safety.

My Department, together with the RPII, will continue to monitor the implementation of the stress tests, including at Sellafield, and will carefully consider their outcomes as they become available. The accident at Fukushima serves to remind us that nuclear safety is a matter for nuclear and non-nuclear States alike. It is imperative that, where a State chooses to develop a nuclear power industry, this is done according to the highest international standards with respect to safety and environmental protection.