Government launches EU action over Sellafield

Ireland is today taking the British government to a tribunal in The Hague in a bid to gain access to information on Sellafield’s MOX plant.

The country is seeking full disclosure of two key reports commissioned by the British government on the economic and environmental aspects of the Cumbrian plant, in a case opening today and expected to last a week.

It is arguing for access to additional information which it claims was withheld.

The reports were prepared before the British authorities approved the plant for reprocessing mixed oxide fuel (MOX) from nuclear reactors.

A spokesman for environment minister Martin Cullen said parts of both reports were “blacked out” and that the Irish Government only saw a percentage of the information.

He described it as a “landmark case”, and the most senior legal case the Irish Government had ever taken.

Ireland’s case before the Ospar Convention’s arbitration tribunal will be led by the Attorney General, Mr Rory Brady SC, with Mr Cullen heading the delegation.

Hearings at The Hague are expected to last around a week, but there may not be a final decision for a number of months, Mr Cullen’s spokesman said.

The tribunal comes just weeks after Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior intercepted two nuclear freighters in the Irish Sea as they made their way back to Sellafield.

The five-tonne cargo of plutonium mixed oxide fuel was sent back from Takahama in Japan after safety records at Sellafield, operated by British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), were exposed as false in 1999.

That journey provoked widespread anger throughout the Irish Republic.