Should be fallout over implausible nuclear report

I thought I had reached my incredulity threshold.

The new report from the Radiological Protection Institute on the effects on the Irish populace of a potential nuclear accident at proposed plants in the UK proved me wrong.

The Department of the Environment-commissioned report, which assessed the effects on the Irish populace of five levels of accident, from mild to severe, concluded that only the worst-case scenario (loss of coolant and a bypass of containment in a reactor) would be a risk, and this would be minimal.!

In the event of a Chernobyl or Fukishima-type accident (the most serious, level-seven event on the International Nuclear Event Scale: ie an accident causing widespread contamination with serious health and environmental effects) sure, we’ll be grand too. Not to worry.

This risible report states that should Fukishima-level fallout occur, it would only produce a dose “less than the annual radiation dose limit for the public”, while airborne contamination “would be transported away from Ireland 90% of the time”.

Since the 1957 fire at Windscale, now Sellafield, this became the bogey man at our door. It is incredible that the reported leaks and accidents there over the years were never a hazard to humans.

What an amazing run of luck we have had. Of the cancer cases in County Louth, in the path of the airborne contamination produced by the fire, officialdom on both sides of the Irish Sea said for decades there was “no scientific evidence” of a link to Sellafield.

This latest report is unhelpful, vacuous and implausible, and its observation that Ireland would suffer “a socio-economic impact” in my view trivialises a serious topic and prioritises the buck, (the bottom line), as more important than public health and safety.

JD Mangan

Stillorgan

Co Dublin