Sir, - Events of the last few months have more than reinforced growing concerns in Ireland about the cavalier approach that British Nuclear Fuels Limited has towards its operations. All the arguments against the Sellafield plant have proved to be remarkably accurate and even former BNFL director, Harold Bolter admitted in his recent book, Inside Sellafield, that the plant would not have been built had all the information been known in 1975.
BNFL has already applied to the British government to increase discharges from its nuclear operations in Cumbria for effluent into the Irish sea. If such an application was successful, this would result in over 30 billion litres of effluent from within the Cumbria region being discharged into the Irish sea over the next 10 years.
The fact that the controversial Dounreay Nuclear Plant in Scotland has been closed has not deterred BNFL in any shape or form. This nuclear plant has stumbled from one crisis to the next since it was established in 1957. In fact, only in the last few months, electrical power was lost at the plant, which may result in criminal prosecution.
It is now only logical that the British government should close down the equally contentious Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria. From a political prospective the reasons for the closure of the Dounreay nuclear plant are equally compelling, when one looks at the faulty record the Sellafield nuclear plant has in the fields of environmental control and public health safety.
It is also a well known fact that British Nuclear Fuels Limited and Siemens, the German conglomerate, are negotiating over possibly combining Siemens nuclear business with that of British Nuclear Fuels Limited. I am concerned that any possible merger between Siemens and BNFL will result in a greater concentration of nuclear operations in Britain, which will be the most likely development from any such proposed merger. This will be a very regressive move and I am strongly lobbying the European Commission to block any proposed merger if such was proposed.
British Nuclear Fuels Limited should now come clean on its bid to take over the Westing House Nuclear Business Group in the United States of America. The US Westing House Nuclear Business Group operates the US government services division, whose activities incorporate the servicing of nuclear weapons and an energy services operation, which provides utility for nuclear fuels. Westing House Nuclear Business is, in fact, behind a third of the world's nuclear plants. British Nuclear Fuels Limited should now clarify what effect there will be for nuclear operations in the Cumbria region if BNFL is successful in taking over the Westing House Nuclear Business Group with the bid which it submitted recently. - Yours, etc., Jim Fitzsimons MEP,
Dublin Road, Navan, Co Meath.