29 July 1999 Edition

Resize: A A A Print

Plutonium shipment

A WHITE ELEPHANT was towed up the Thames to the British Houses of Parliament last Friday, 23 July, by Greenpeace in protest at the shipment across the Irish Sea of 32 plutonium fuel (MOX), separated at the British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL) state reprocessing plant at Sellafield for sale to Japan.

This shipment is the first of a possible 80 similar shipments from Sellafield.

Sinn Féin Louth County Councillor Arthur Morgan said:

``It is crucial that these shipments be stopped. Not only are they entirely in conflict with the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, but they are central to BNFL's continuing operations at Sellafield.

``It is inconceivable in the Europe of today that any company, least of all a state-controlled company like BNFL should be allowed to profit from the reprocessing of plutonium.''

Only last year Greenpeace took radioactive contamination samples from the coastline between Dundalk and Belfast and reported extremely high levels of Tc-99, a radioactive emission, off Cooley Point and Donaghadee, County Down.

BNFL has announced no plans to reduce radioactive emissions into the Irish Sea. BNFL is, however, on record as saying that ``zero discharges'' are not possible in the short term - which means before the year 2020.

Far from decreasing radioactive discharges, it was reported in March of this year that BNFL had applied to the British government to increase discharges from Sellafield. It had also applied to start up a new plant to make nuclear fuel from plutonium.

The combined shipment of two British flagged ships (one from Barrow, the other from Cherbourg, in France) carried enough plutonium to construct 60 nuclear weapons.

There have been widespread international protests from New Zealand, South Korea and 25 governments of the wider Caribbean region against these shipments. Heads of state of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) said that they are ``particularly outraged at the callous and contemptuous disregard'' of their appeals by the governments of France, Britain and Japan ``to desist from this dangerous misuse of the Caribbean Sea''.

But the Irish government was not amongst those protesting at the shipments. In fact, it has been noticeably silent on the question. No protest was made at the shipments last week. ``It is increasingly doubtful that the government has any interest in pursuing its declared objective of getting the British government to close Sellafield,'' says Arthur Morgan.

Quite out of the blue, though, the government announced this week that ``no naval vessels and military aircraft will be given permission to enter territorial waters of the State unless... a written statement certifying that the craft does not carry nuclear weapons'' is provided. And when will this come into force? Well not quite yet. It is part of the Radiological Protection Bill of 1998, which is due to be finalised before the end of the year. A government spokesman said that the measure will either be accepted as part of the new legislation or rejected.

Arthur Morgan described the government announcement on military, nuclear-carrying transports as ``window dressing to obscure a vacuum in government action to stop these shipments, to shut Sellafield down, and to halt the proliferation of nuclear weaponry''.

The Louth county councillor told AP/RN:

``Everywhere I go, especially down the East coast, people come to me and point out the clear increase in incidences of cancer. It is frightening, and all the more so because the government is apparently not concerned to do anything about it.''


An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland