Ahern blasts Blair over Sellafield
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern tonight demanded that the Sellafield nuclear power plant on England’s west coast be closed down.
With the threat from such terrorists greater than ever before, Mr Ahern said the risk from the site was ‘‘unacceptably increased’’ with the announcement of the new MOX fuel operation.
Opening the 75th Ard Fheis of Fianna Fail, Mr Ahern accused his British counterpart Tony Blair of burying the announcement while world attention was diverted by the terrorism crisis.
And he described the plant, which is being ‘‘kept on a life support machine’’ by the British taxpayer, as the biggest threat to Ireland’s environment.
Mr Ahern’s address to the party conference came the day after an article in New Scientist magazine warned a terrorist strike on Sellafield could release 44 times more radioactive material than the disaster at Chernobyl.
‘‘We are appalled by the decision to proceed with the new MOX plant,’’ Mr Ahern told delegates at the conference in west Dublin.
‘‘It has all the hallmarks of a bad news story hastily released in the midst of a momentous international crisis in the hope that most people will be distracted.
‘‘It poses a significant additional and totally unacceptable threat to our environment and to our national security.
‘‘In the context of the heightened threat from terrorism the existing risks from Sellafield are unacceptably increased.
‘‘The opening of the MOX plant would mean that the Irish Sea is used as a highway for the transport of highly dangerous nuclear fuel to and from nuclear plants around the world.
‘‘And this is in addition to the existing and equally unacceptable activities of Sellafield.’’
Mr Ahern said he had spoken to Mr Blair, with whom relations are usually good, and explained the opposition to the new development.
‘‘I have personally conveyed to minister Blair the government’s opposition to the decision to proceed with the MOX plant. It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry,’’ he said.
To rapturous applause he added: ‘‘The position of Fianna Fail is clear and uncompromising. We demand that Sellafield is shut.’’
Yesterday Senator Fergus O’Dowd, of Fine Gael, called on the British Government to establish a no-fly zone over Sellafield.
It followed the New Scientist article based on an interview with Gordon Thompson, executive director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which suggested what may happen if an airliner were deliberately flown into the nuclear site.
‘‘Four million terabecquerels of radioactivity would contaminate large parts of Britain and, depending on which way the wind was blowing, Ireland, continental Europe and beyond,’’ the article said.
But British Nuclear Fuels called the article ‘‘grossly irresponsible’’ and announced it was tightening safety and security procedures.
