Radiation survey - We must face up to nuclear debate

THERE is tremendous potential for a sceptical response to the news that a British government agency is to establish, on our behalf, the level of Sellafield radioactivity faced by some people living in Ireland.

Ireland has taken Britain to the international courts to have the plant shut down and government manifesto promises: “We will continue to bring political, diplomatic and legal efforts to bear on the UK with a view to securing the safe decommissioning of all nuclear reprocessing facilities at Sellafield.”

The Centre for Environmental, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) is an agency of the Britain’s Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The €60,000 contract is to establish if there are previously unrecognised ways that the east coast’s population may be coming into contact with radioactive material coming from Sellafield.

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) is confident that CEFAS can serve two masters and that its report, expected in 2009, will offer a clear and objective picture of the situation.

Let us hope that is correct because if even some of the predictions of energy shortages are true, hard decisions will have to be made about nuclear power and whether we should build our own plant or not.