Fears of nuclear accident `clearly well-founded'

The fears held by many Irish people over the years that an accident might happen at Sellafield were "clearly well-founded", the chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland has said.

Dr Tom O'Flaherty, reacting to yesterday's report from the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, said the findings were serious.

"The most serious aspect of the report is that the practice of falsifying safety records has apparently been going on for so long and has only now come to light. It will obviously reinforce the concerns that Irish people have had of an accident there over the years."

While the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate report did not raise immediate safety concerns for Ireland, it did highlight the failure to have safety procedures carried out properly, said Mr Mark Johnston, energy campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

"What it does mean is that people are quite right to be concerned that the same management attitude that gave rise to these incidents is present throughout the rest of the organisation - something which could easily give rise to an accident."

A spokesman for Voice Of Irish Concern for the Environment (VOICE), the group which has taken over from Greenpeace in Ireland, said the report did not "bode well for the planned partial privatisation of Sellafield".

Mr Gavin Harte said the report displayed "poor management" at the plant, which was "slovenly in its approach".

"VOICE never had any doubts about the lack of safety at Sellafield," said Mr Harte, "and has always been of the opinion that the nuclear fuel industry was of dubious purpose. It runs at a loss. It is a spin-off from the arms industry."