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Dún Laoghaire, Environment, Justice and Latest Press Releases

9 May 2005 

 Huge leak at Sellafield highlights need for plant to close permanently says Green Party

“This leak – enough to fill half a swimming pool – yet again underlines the danger Sellafield presents to Ireland.

Responding to news just emerging that twenty tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel leaked on April 19 this year, and that it has caused the Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield to close, Green Party Environment spokesperson Ciarán Cuffe TD said today that;

“This huge leak – enough to fill half a swimming pool – yet again underlines the danger Sellafield presents to Ireland. We’re only getting news about this leak now three weeks after it has occurred and British Nuclear Fuels, the state body which runs Sellafield, has not even bothered to publish a press release about it. Now we’re told that although the leak presents no danger to the public, the technology to mop it up has yet to be devised.” 

“At a time when the Labour government in Britain is trailing proposals to build new plants, another leak at Sellafield only underlines the trans-national consequences of such decisions.”

 “The Green Party is calling for the Irish Government to do everything it can to speed up the long overdue closure of this unsafe plant,” concluded Deputy Cuffe.

This leak is just one of the issues that Deputy Cuffe and Green Party Leader Trevor Sargent TD will be taking up later this month when they visit the WYLFA nuclear plant near Holyhead in Wales.

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