Nuclear power and energy crisis

Facts cannot be wished away

Sir, – It is too late, and undesirable, for Ireland to acquiesce to the prescription of Caroline Hurley that Ireland remain nuclear-free and neutral (Letters, September 2nd).

In July, you reported that not only had An Bord Pleanála approved an electricity interconnector with France, but that the Institute of International and European Affairs has proposed that a second should be developed. France generates 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power stations, so we will therefore certainly be consuming nuclear-reliant power when and if these interconnectors are built.

We are probably already doing so through the interconnector with the UK.

Remaining neutral in the context of Ukraine’s war with Russia, and other similar conflicts, is not a tenable position. We cannot hold the view that tyrants must be stopped, and at the same time sit self-righteously by when one is delivering destruction to the cities and people of a county like Ukraine. – Yours, etc,

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SEAMUS McKENNA,

Dublin 14.