Government urges Britain to consider temporary closure of Sellafield

The government has urged Britain to consider the temporary closure of Sellafield, following a report revealing that data at the plant had been falsified. The minister of state at the Department of Public Enterprise said that the Radiological Protection Institute was seeking an urgent meeting with its British counterparts to establish why Sellafield was being allowed to continue to operate and to assess any potential risk to Ireland.

The British government has called for a thorough review of management at Sellafield after today's damning report into the falsification of fuel data. The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said that systematic management failures allowed workers to falsify quality assurance records. The Health and Safety Executive said that the MOX plant has been shut down and will not be allowed to restart until they are happy that the recommendations in their report have been implemented.

BNFL said that many of the recommendations had already been put in place. They have been given to months to carry out a root and branch review of the company. Here, the minister with responsibility for nuclear safety Joe Jacob said that he was disturbed by today's reports. He said that the British Government must now justify the continuing operation of Sellafield. Michael Bell of Labour said that the report provided new grounds for international legal action against Sellafield.

Two environmental bodies, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, called on BNFL to abandon nuclear reprocessing and move towards other processes in the industry, such as the decommissioning and cleaning up of nuclear plants across the world. Mark Johnstone of Friends of the Earth said that the report could have serious consequences for Sellafield. On Morning Ireland, Peter Roche of Greenpeace said that two other reports, also due out today, argue for an end to reprocessing at Sellafield.