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Labour Scaremongering on Nuclear.
Read more about: Climate Change, Energy, Labour Party 
Another day another Labour press Release to look at. UK nuclear plans, a major worry
There are still many unanswered questions about, for example, the link between the incidence of particular cancers in Co Louth
Interesting statement depends on how you define the word unanswered.
The National Cancer Registry of Ireland did a study on the high rates of Cancer in Louth and concluded.
There is no proven way in which even the small extra radioactive burden coming from the re-processing plant at Sellafield could increase the radiation exposure of Louth residents in any significant quantities. In any case, none of the cancer types found to be in excess in Louth are known to be caused by radiation.
Also on the issue of the number Down’s syndrome births in Louth. This was also dismissed as being caused by the windscale fire of 1957.
So really this just seems to be populist scaremongering playing on peoples fears of Nuclear Power.
In their 2007 Report the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland concluded
The consumption of fish and shellfish from the Irish Sea continued to be the dominant pathway by which radioactive contamination of
the marine environment resulted in radiation exposure of the Irish population. In 2007, the mean annual committed effective dose to a
heavy consumer of seafood from the Irish Sea was 0.74 μSv, which was similar to that received in recent years. Caesium-137 remained the
dominant radionuclide, accounting for approximately 84% of this dose.
The doses incurred by the Irish public in 2007 as a result of artificial radioactivity in the environment are small by comparison with the doses received as a result of natural radiation. The dose from the consumption of fish and shellfish, for example, was small compared with the estimated annual dose of 148 μSv received by the same consumer due to the presence of the naturally occurring radionuclide,
polonium-210, in seafood and with the average annual dose to a person in Ireland from all sources of radioactivity of 3950 μSv.
In general, levels of radioactivity in the Irish environment remain fairly constant and are broadly consistent with levels reported previously.
However, the activity concentrations of technetium-99 in seawater and seaweed samples determined in 2007 have decreased considerably since the peak in concentrations observed in the late nineties. This reflects the lower discharges of this radionuclide since 2004. It must be emphasised that the levels of radioactive contamination present in the marine environment do not warrant any modification of the habits of people in Ireland, either in respect of consumption of seafood or any other use of the amenities of the marine environment.
In conclusion, the results of the monitoring programme in 2007 show that, while the levels of artificial radioactivity in the Irish environment remain detectable, they are low and do not pose a significant risk to human health.
I have written about Nuclear power before
Simon,
You have indeed written some very interesting pieces on the nuclear debate in the past. I wrote a piece last year for the Irish edition of the Sunday Times and more recently engaged in a debate on Newstalk with Ciaran Cuffe about the prospect of a new power plant at Wylfa – he had a lot of misgivings as one might expect, but it is disheartening to hear the same old anti-nuclear rhetoric being played out again for public consumption.
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that these people don’t read anything, or if they do, that it passes over their heads and in any case they could never let the facts get in the way of their own prejudices. Above all it’s the height of populism to go banging the old anti-Sellafield drum, isn’t it? And in today’s world it’s about as intelligent a response as it was when the issue guaranteed a top spot in the media, and national hero status, the following day.
One might have thought that Labour’s esteemed candidate for East, after her unfortunate recent release on the HSE seamstresses and suicide counselling, might wish to appear a bit more measured in her responses. But no, it seems any chance to fire a cheap shot at her former Green Party colleagues, particularly its Ministers in Government, is not to be overlooked. The fact that she hasn’t a clue what she is talking about serves as no deterrent.
For the record, I’m including here some of the conclusions from my own book, ‘Going Nuclear,’ on the politics of Ireland and Sellafield. I read them over this morning; they’re as valid today as when I first wrote them almost two years ago now:
“Living next door to Sellafield generates considerable unease, and very
real fears, among Irish people, especially those living along the east
coast and in Co. Louth. Ireland’s nuclear watchdog, the RPII, has
consistently sought to provide a measured and factual picture of the
hazards posed by Sellafield to Ireland and its environment. If anything,
their task is becoming more difficult, as security restrictions in Britain
and the dissolution of the informal relationships which RPII officials
enjoyed with BNFL limit their capacity to make a comprehensive
analysis of safety issues at Sellafield. Too often in this story they have been a lone voice, lost among a media and political chain reaction of outrage and hysteria that, in the
end, served little purpose except the generation of unreasonable fear.
“Ireland’s uncritical adoption of the Greenpeace agenda as national
policy on nuclear issues and Sellafield, endorsed by the media,
represents a major triumph for the environmental organisation….. What has to be questioned is whether
that agenda, while it may have been entirely appropriate to an
international NGO, wholly served the best interests of a sovereign
country. Agreements between Britain and Ireland on nuclear
information sharing and consultation would most likely have been
concluded much earlier if a different approach had been followed…..
“Sellafield served as a distraction for politicians from having to deal
with Ireland’s own environment problems. Designating Sellafield as the
greatest environmental threat to Ireland somehow made national
environmental issues appear less threatening or urgent. It also made them
more difficult to deal with. At the start of 2007, the Irish government
was the subject of some thirty infringement proceedings by the EU for
failure to observe or properly implement European environment laws.
” As the bizarre mechanism chosen for implementation of the EU
HASS directive shows, anti-Sellafield posturing has limited Ireland’s
ability, to the point of political impossibility, to face up to its
responsibilities to deal with our own relatively insignificant – at least
on the Sellafield scale of things – nuclear waste problem.
” Ireland’s international court cases, too, ended in failure and in
retrospect appear reckless and naïve. The rationale for the change in
twenty years of advice from successive Attorneys General that such a
case should only be brought if it stood a reasonable chance of success
has never been satisfactorily explained.
” The possibility of one further international court case remains open
– perhaps relating to Britain’s contamination of the shared resource of
the Irish Sea over a prolonged period – but any Irish government
embarking on such a course of action would need to feel assured of a
successful outcome.
Interesting Might need to track down your book.
I think the majority of people are ignorant on the reality of radiation. (See the mobile mast talk) and feel it is going to kill us all. Politicians should rally against this and tell the truth but they pander
Simon,
Nuclear physics is a foreign country to most people, understandably. Your average Irish politician – I think we have only one professional scientist in the Dail – is no different. But there were points in the story of Ireland’s political battle with Britain to close down Sellafield when our public representatives knew full well they were talking rot in their public pronouncements; but for electoral reasons continued to do so anyway. In the 1995-97 Rainbow Coalition there were three Ministers with a Sellafield brief and they competed with one another in their release of condemnatory statements at every turn. Fianna Fail,in opposition, and later back in government, were determined to trump them in their denunciations,ultimately leading to the failed international legal actions.
The point of course is that you can’t determine a national policy on the basis of the wilful embrace of a pack of lies, irrespective of whatever other motivations may be guiding you. Ultimately such a policy will blow up in your face; which it did in this case. Besides, in terms of international relations it is a self-defeating, self-diminishing and an utterly ineffective way of going about your country’s business. In short, reckless and stupid; but unfortunately I suspect other examples abound in various policy areas.
You should be able to get the book through Amazon or from Irish Academic Press directly, if you’re interested. Eighteen months after it was published one of my nearest and dearest said she had started reading it. “It’s a good read,” she said. She sounded surprised.