Greens call for action following damning Sellafield report

The Green Party has called on the Irish Government to urgently engage with its counterparts in the UK following a damning report on safety and workplace culture at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing site in Cumbria.

Raising the matter in both the Seanad and Dáil this week, Green Party Senator Malcolm Noonan and Party Leader Roderic O'Gorman TD said the report by members of the Westminster Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on June 3rd detailed a “suboptimal workplace culture” and highlighted the "intolerable risks" created by Sellafield’s crumbling infrastructure.

The estimated clean-up cost for the site now stands at £136bn and has a projected timeframe of 100 years.

Senator Noonan called on the Irish Government to make immediate contact with UK authorities, as he questioned the level of ongoing engagement between managers at the facility and the Environmental Protection Agency here.

“Sellafield has a poor safety record. MPs at the PAC have called on the bosses at the facility to get a grasp on the ‘intolerable risks’ posed by its ageing infrastructure. This is also an intolerable risk to us here in Ireland as its nearest neighbour. As a former employee and whistle-blower has cautioned, the Irish government must wake up to the safety risk this presents," Senator Noonan said.

"The facility is just 180km from the Irish coast and a major accident there could have profound implications for human health and food production here for decades. This report reads like something from the Springfield nuclear plant in The Simpsons. The Irish Government needs to express its concerns and hold the UK Government and Sellafield to account over its current state."

Roderic O'Gorman TD also raised the matter in the Dáil this week. 

“Conditions at the facility, which is not only dealing with legacy nuclear waste from the arms industry but highly radioactive waste from the UK’s ageing civil nuclear facilities, are deeply concerning. Since Brexit, Britain is no longer a member of the Euratom Treaty (the EU Nuclear Safety watchdog) and although it has a nuclear cooperation agreement with the EU since 2020, it is a case of out of sight, out of mind. I do not think that the Irish Government is doing enough to hold either Sellafield or the UK nuclear industry to account on a matter that is of concern to us here in Ireland," said Deputy O'Gorman.

“I raised this issue directly with the Tánaiste, and I welcome his agreement that the Environmental Protection Agency should send staff over to inspect Sellafield following the findings of the House of Commons report.”

The Green Party contends that the nuclear cooperation agreement between Britain and the EU must be activated in light of the report, and that Euratom must also become involved due to concerns around the safety of storage and processing of spent fuel at Sellafield.

“We will be writing to the Taoiseach, Tá naiste, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and the Minister for the Environment on this matter in the coming week, requesting that the Irish Government take this report seriously and engage with UK authorities to seek assurances that issues raised in the report will be addressed as a matter of urgency,” concluded Senator Noonan.