We fight Sellafield, but we poison ourselves
Take, for instance, the admirable efforts of our Minister for the Environment against British Nuclear Fuels over Sellafield in the European Court.
The humorous irony in all this is to be found in Cork where, on the shores of the second largest natural harbour in the world, there are plans to build another toxic waste reprocessing facility a toxic waste incinerator (as distinct from and as well as a less undesirable municipal waste incinerator).
This is to be located on a site of such strategic value at Ringaskiddy that it was deemed necessary to create the land itself at taxpayers' expense some years ago (flat land at sea-level adjacent to deepwater being rare both in Cork as elsewhere in creation). Like BNFL's plant at Sellafield, this must be specifically to facilitate easy importation of toxic waste in bulk from overseas. All this is in the minister's own jurisdiction. But watching him recently, I realised that here is a man whose grizzled visage shall forever remain untouched and untroubled by even such barbarous and hard-forged ironies as these.
Never mind, the minister recently salvaged numerous Welsh and Irish lawyers from penury and those inhabitants of that hillside cathedral town one mile immediately downwind of the proposed incinerator are, after all, only Corkonians.
Stanislaus Reynolds,
The Old Schoolhouse,
Toames West,
Macroom,
Co Cork.
