Experts from British Nuclear Fuels Ltd are to brief Irish officials early next month on Sellafield's ability to withstand attack by international terrorists. The offer of a briefing to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) was made in advance of this week's court ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of Sea.
The Hamburg-based court refused to stop Sellafield's mixed-oxide (MOX) plant from opening, but it accepted that Ireland had a legal right to consultation by the British authorities.
The meeting between BNFL and the RPII will take place in Dublin, not at the Cumbrian plant. "Physically eye-balling things is not going to tell us much. It is explanations about how things are constructed that we really need," said RPII official Mr Christopher Hone.
The RPII has also had discussions about the security risks posed by Sellafield in the wake of the September 11th atrocities with the UK's nuclear installations inspectorate. Meanwhile, senior European Parliament scientific experts have criticised a Paris-based research company which carried out a review of Sellafield and its French equivalent at Cap de la Hague. In its report, WISE-Paris alleged that a nuclear accident at Sellafield could cause more damage than the Chernobyl explosion in The Ukraine in 1986.
