Calls for the Government to take legal action to close Sellafield will be renewed this week following the leaking of an EU report which claims an accident at the plant could cause greater damage than the Chernobyl explosion.
The calls come as the EU Commission prepares today to make a statement to the EU Parliament on the safety of nuclear installations and on the future of air travel in the wake of September 11th.
The report, prepared prior to the US attacks, anticipates radiation leaks due to "acts of malice", including an air crash or act of sabotage.
The environmental group, Wise Paris, which prepared the report for the EU's Scientific and Technological Option Assessment (STOA) committee, has since called for the installation of anti-aircraft batteries to protect Sellafield as a matter of urgency.
"The long-term consequences of a release from the Sellafield HLW tanks could be much greater than the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, due to the large amounts of caesium-137 and other radioisotopes in the Sellafield tanks," the report says.
It also claims that some emissions from Sellafield have caused the release of radiation doses in excess of the recommended EU levels.
The report, Possible Toxic Effects from the Nuclear Reprocessing Plants at Sellafield (UK) and Cap de la Hague (France), says that influences such as human error, equipment failure, earthquakes or acts of malice could initiate a sequence of events that releases a substantial amount of radioactive material into the environment.
Green MEP Ms Nuala Ahern expressed concern that tomorrow's meeting of STOA, to discuss whether to publish the report, is to be held in camera.
She will raise the issue before the European Parliament in Strasbourg today.
Some members of the parliament questioned the independence of the report, according to Ms Ahern. It had, however, since been assessed by a team of scientists and these concerns had been rebutted, she said.
Wise (World Information Service on Energy), which has a number of offices in Europe, is a campaigning organisation against the nuclear industry.
Ms Ahern said information in the report which suggested that aspects of the Sellafield plant are in breach of EU law was immediately "actionable" by the Irish Government.
The report claims the UK authorities have not complied with their responsibilities under the Euratom Treaty and that the European Commission has never effectively used its rights to inspect the plant.
Ms Ahern said it was "very disturbing" that tomorrow's meeting of the STOA would not be open to the public or the media.
"I would be very worried if any decision was taken behind closed doors on this report," she said.
Meanwhile, the Labour party has tabled a Dβil motion deploring the failure of the Government to take "assertive preventative action" to block the decommissioning of the MOX plant at Sellafield.
The 10-point motion also condemns the British authorities for sanctioning the commissioning of the plant.
It urges that further legal action be taken under the Euratom Treaty at European Court level, under the Ospar convention and under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Labour spokesman on Public Enterprise, Mr Emmet Stagg, said the "feeble response" of the Government to the MOX decision showed it had "little or no idea" what to do.