Ireland remains strongly opposed to nuclear power; we must not sacrifice the future of the environment for current electricity demands, writes Dick Roche.
The debate on nuclear energy is being reopened. Supporters of nuclear power are now cloaking the debate in the guise of an environmental response to global warming and new concerns on secure energy supplies.
Ireland is not unaffected by this. The UK has announced a review of energy policy that will give explicit consideration to the building of new nuclear power plants.
Ireland considered going nuclear in the 1970s but in the end "No nuclear" became the clear and unequivocal message. In fact the Electricity Regulation Act, 1999, makes it clear that nuclear power cannot be used for the production of electricity in Ireland.
The accidents at Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986) have obviously influenced international opinion on nuclear energy but the experience and perhaps, more importantly, the practice of our near neighbours in the UK has shaped our views in Ireland.
Ireland has a significant stakeholder interest in the implications of forthcoming UK decisions and this is recognised. Where our interests are affected by environmental, safety and other concerns, the Government will pursue all political, legal and diplomatic avenues to protect those interests. We make no apology for doing so.
We have good reason to be concerned. We have seen environmental degradation caused by the historic and ongoing radioactive discharges to the Irish Sea from Sellafield. On the site itself there is a continuing poor operational safety record. Highly radioactive wastes are not being adequately dealt with and a continuing threat is posed by the risk of an accident or attack.
Sellafield not only had the world's first nuclear plant but also the first significant accident: the Windscale fire in October 1957. The incident also marked an early example of the nuclear industry's reluctance to make information available to the public and to deal with issues in an open and transparent manner.
Sellafield's poor operational safety record undermines the repeated assurances on safety given by the operator, the regulator and the UK government.
Between 1950 and 1976, there were 177 incidents that were sufficiently serious to warrant investigation.
In 1980, the safety regulator in the UK determined that safety at the site had deteriorated to a level which "should not have been allowed to develop, nor should it be permitted to occur again".
In 1999 we had the infamous "falsification" of data at the MOX demonstration facility.
Last year we had a leak at the Thorp plant of 83,000 litres (a 25-metre swimming pool worth!) of highly radioactive liquid from a tank into a concrete containment cell.
A report on last year's incident referred to failure by staff to act appropriately, a culture of complacency, failure to act on information, a prioritising of production over planned inspections and ambiguous operating instructions.
This record represents a cycle of failure. The question arises "how many strikes before you are out?" Because of these continuous incidents the Irish Government, in 2001, initiated several legal actions. Again there is no reason to make apologies for that.
The Government's first responsibility is to protect the health and wellbeing of its citizens and these actions have borne results in terms of improved co-operation on nuclear issues between Ireland and the UK.
We have seen access for the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and An Garda Síochána to Sellafield, access for Ireland to the UK remote-sensing system for radioactive monitoring (Rimnet) and the development of close contacts and information exchange arrangements at regulator and official level. Without our court cases, we would not have forced the pace of change.
Our decision to take legal actions in international forums has led to a difference of opinion with the European Commission. The advocate-general has issued an opinion suggesting that the European Court of Justice is the appropriate court to adjudicate in the dispute between Ireland and the UK.
The International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea and Sweden support Ireland's position on our right to sue in international forums. We await the final outcome of the court, which will have huge significance in clarifying international and community law in this area.
It is the Government's view that if the commission claims jurisdiction, it has a moral and legal obligation to exercise that jurisdiction - to adopt a new and robust approach to the continued operation of the Sellafield plant. This was the case which I impressed on Commissioner Franco Frattini, vice-president and EU commissioner responsible for justice, freedom and security, and Commissioner Andrias Piebalgs who has responsibility for energy, when I met them last week.
I emphasised to the commission that its assurances now need to be backed up by action. The commission indicated that further legal action was expected in relation to the radioactive storage pond (B.30), which has long been of concern to the Government.
I also expect that we will shortly see action being taken under the Euratom treaty in relation to the failures at Thorp last year. The form of that action will be made clear shortly.
The opening of the first nuclear plant in the world, the UK's Calder Hall, 50 years ago, was acclaimed with the cry that it would produce "electricity too cheap to meter". We now know different! Calder Hall ceased production in March 2003 and is being decommissioned at an estimated cost to the UK of £1.3 billion. The radioactivity will last for thousands of years. The current estimated total bill for decommissioning of nuclear facilities in the UK is £70 billion, a cost seldom factored into discussions by the pro-nuclear lobby.
Those in Ireland who have been suggesting recently that there are good economic or business grounds for pursuing the nuclear option need to consider the whole picture. We cannot sacrifice the future of the environment for current electricity demands.
I do not accept the argument that the nuclear option can provide a solution to problems of climate change and energy supply. The reality is that the nuclear industry carries with it serious environmental, nuclear proliferation and safety risks. The hitching of nuclear power to the climate-change wagon is both simplistic and disingenuous. It ignores the real economic costs and the unsustainable environmental legacy left to future generations. It proposes a "solution" which in the long run could be worse than the problem.
Dick Roche is Minister for the Environment and Local Government