March 2007


Roche to host nuclear talks in Dublin – RTE

The Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, is to meet his counterparts from Iceland, Austria and Norway, along with the German State Secretary for the Environment, at Dublin Castle this morning.

On the agenda are common concerns arising from the trans-boundary implications of nuclear activities, including Britain’s Sellafield nuclear plant.

They will also discuss the use of nuclear energy as the answer to climate change.

later today I hope to meet with Lofoten against Sellafield (Norway) in Dublin City, other groups in the area, I can be contacted on mobile 085 711 6466

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor The Independent
Published: 18 March 2007

Safety alarms have been routinely ignored, operating instructions flouted, and safety equipment left broken at the controversial Sellafield nuclear plant, a devastating official inquiry has found.

The inquiry report – one of the most damning ever on a British nuclear installation – condemns “an alarm-tolerant culture”, “long-standing failings in some key safety arrangements” and a “failure to learn from previous events” at the Cumbrian complex.

The accident at the Thorp reprocessing plant – which was disclosed by The Independent on Sunday in 2005 – has kept the plant closed ever since, and was the focus of the investigation.

Some 83,000 litres of highly radioactive liquid leaked at the plant for at least eight months before the spill was detected.

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