Tony Blair has said it would be wrong to close Sellafield and "put large numbers of people out of work" without safety evidence from the appropriate nuclear regulatory bodies to back up such action.
The British prime minister was replying in the House of Commons to SDLP MP John Hume who had asked him what he was going to do to remove Irish concerns about the safety of the plant.
Mr Blair replied that he was aware of those concerns and that he took them seriously. However he stressed that Sellafield and other nuclear facilities in Britain were "subject to the strictest national and international standards".
Mr Blair said Sellafield had been regularly inspected and "each of these inspections has never found there to be a problem."
