The Government is to seek "full clarification" regarding the latest shutdown of nuclear reactors at Sellafield.
The Minister of State with responsibility for nuclear safety, Mr Joe Jacob, has instructed his officials to seek the clarification after six UK reactors, four of them in the Sellafield complex, were shut down last week.
The State's nuclear watchdog, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII), has expressed concern it was not informed of the development.
British Nuclear Fuels says the reactors, which were shut down on December 9th, will not return to service until the New Year at the earliest. The company insisted yesterday there was "absolutely no risk" to the public.
According to Mr Jacob, the incident "clearly justified" the Government's determination to have Sellafield shut down. "It also serves to underpin the importance of the legal actions and avenues being pursued by the Government," he said.
The problem stems from an safety alert which occurred last October at the Chapelcross reactor on the west coast of Scotland. This prompted an investigation of all similar nuclear plants by BNFL and Britain's Nuclear Installation Inspectorate, which in turn resulted in this month's decision to shut down six more reactors for detailed inspection.
Dr Tom O'Flaherty, chief executive of the RPII, said any incident involving the control rods in a nuclear reactor was "a serious event". However, on the information available, he believed there were no immediate danger to the public.
Dr O'Flaherty said the institute would be following up the incident with the British authorities. He expressed surprise that it had not been informed of the matter, as normally happens.
A BNFL spokesperson said the RPII had not been informed because the shutdown was "not an incident" and had "no safety implications as such".
All the affected stations belong to the first generation of nuclear power plants built in the late 1950s and 1960s. At Chapelcross, a problem arose with the rods which control the heat in the reactor. A rod failed to drop cleanly because the covering metal charge plate was out of alignment.
The incident lead to fears about the safety of the reactors after four decades of intensive use. BNFL was unable to say when the affected reactors would start up again, explaining this would depend on the view taken by the Nuclear Installation Inspectorate.
The Government is campaigning for the closure of the MOX nuclear reprocessing plant on the Sellafield site. However, earlier this month, a UN court rejected Ireland's attempt to halt the opening of the plant.
