21st July 2002

PRESS RELEASE

GREEN PARTY WELCOMES BLOCKING OF NUCLEAR SHIPS

The Green Party has welcomed the blocking of the ships carrying plutonium back to Sellafield from Japan. The ships are being blocked by a flotilla of anti-nuclear protesters in yachts in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

“Nuclear reprocessing is a corrupt, dangerous and unsustainable activity,” stated Ciarán Cuffe of the Green Party this evening. “If BNFL falsifies safety records, how can we trust them when they say that the nuclear industry is safe?”

“We intend to protest if and when the protest reaches the Irish Sea next month in order to highlight the danger that Sellafield poses, particularly after the events of the 11th September last year.

The ships, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal are carrying fuel rejected by Kansai Electric; a client of British Nuclear Fuels in Japan after it was revealed that BNFL had deliberately falsified quality records for the fuel.

Following more than 2 years of storage in ponds at Kansai Electric’s Takahama power station, the rejected fuel containing 255 kg of plutonium has degraded as a result of the build up of radioactive decay products in the plutonium/uranium mixture, downgrading it to a waste product.

The THORP reprocessing plant has no licence to process the degraded plutonium fuel rods that are therefore likely to languish indefinitely as yet more nuclear waste at Sellafield.

ENDS

For further information contact:

Ciarán Cuffe, TD   087 265 2075 or 6183082

Stephen Rawson, Press Officer 087 235 7551 or 618 4088