The British government has come under renewed pressure over the way the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been operated.
Iceland yesterday called for the plant to be shut down, while the environment ministers of the five Scandinavian countries have expressed "grave concern" about Sellafield.
This follows last week's revelation that false documents had been provided with fuel rods produced at the plant run by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL).
The EU environment commissioner, Ms Margot Wallstrom, is to raise the safety record of Sellafield when she meets British government ministers next week. EU officials were said to be taking last week's report into the falsification of data at the plant "very seriously".
Meanwhile, the Green party has accused the Taoiseach of "turning his back" on Sellafield by failing to raise the issue at the inaugural meeting of the British-Irish intergovernmental conference last December. Nordic countries expected Ireland, as the state closest to the plant, to be "calling the shots", the party said. Iceland's foreign minister, Mr Halldor Asgrimsson, yesterday expressed disappointment at British promises to scale back radioactive discharges from Sellafield into the sea. Mr Cook said the discharge from Sellafield was within international limits and was already being reduced. He repeated a British pledge that the discharge would be reduced to "almost zero" within two decades.
The Scandinavian countries this week pledged to intensify pressure on Britain to solve the problems surrounding Sellafield. Environment ministers said they expected the British authorities to present proposals for heavy reductions of emission from nuclear plants by this summer.
