Irish mount huge legal bid to close ?at risk? Sellafield

Irish fears about Britain's Sellafield nuclear plant are being expressed with more vigour than ever this week as the Dublin Government mounts its biggest international legal challenge to the complex on the other side of the Irish Sea.

The risks to Ireland from an accident at Sellafield, Cumbria, and in particular from its controversial Mox fuel plant, were outlined at a tribunal in The Hague by the Republic's attorney general, Rory Brady.

Terrorist attack, radioactive emissions from an accident or fire at the plant, discharges of radioactive material into the Irish Sea and leakage of it in the course of shipment are all major Irish concerns, Mr Brady told the arbitration court of the OSPAR (Oslo and Paris) convention, which regulates the marine environment of the North-east Atlantic.

The Mox plant, opened last December after years of controversy, uses waste atomic power station fuel to manufacture new "mixed oxide" fuel containing highly radioactive plutonium, which in a more refined version is the raw material for nuclear weapons.

No British power station uses Mox so all the plant produces has to be transported to customers abroad, Japan being the main user.

Mr Brady warned that fire at sea could cause the fuel to vaporise, releasing "large breathable particles" into the atmosphere. There was the risk of a ship sinking, with unrecovered storage units corroding over time, allowing the Mox fuel to escape. And, Mr Brady said, the risk of terrorist attack had heightened since 11 September.

The Mox plant would produce radioactive wastes in solid, liquid and gaseous forms, particularly "plutonium-contaminated material" and a significant amount would be discharged into the Irish Sea, he said.

Yet the types and quantities of radioactive waste were not specified in the plant's 1993 Environmental Impact Statement Ireland, which was inadequate, Mr Brady added. He believed that because the Mox plant will be making fuel from separated plutonium from the adjoining Thorp plant, there would be an increase in discharges from Sellafield.

"Ireland's concerns are reinforced by the fact that the Irish Sea, a semi-enclosed sea, is one of the most radioactively-polluted seas in the world," he warned.

Mr Brady is asking the tribunal to order the British Government to produce the full, unedited versions of two reports on the plant's economic viability, parts of which have been withheld. The British Government says it is for commercial confidentiality but Ireland does not accept that.

The opening and operation of the £472m Mox plant has only exacerbated the long-running concern of the Irish Government over Sellafield: its ultimate aim is to have the whole plant closed.

The beginning of a regular international trade through the Irish Sea of dangerous plutonium fuel has also concentrated the opposition of environmental pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.

Britain says the plant meets the highest international safety standards and has vowed to fight the current court case vigorously. A spokesman for the British embassy in Dublin said: "The very small amount of information being held back is commercial information. It's not about safety at all. We fully believe we are in the right about this and will let justice take its course."

The Hague court started to listen to arguments from the two countries on Monday and is expected to rule on the issue within months.