Sir, Ms Nuala Ahern MEP persists (July 11th) in elevating the choice of a speaker at our recent Chernobyl Anniversary Conference into a litmus lest of the objectivity of the RPII. I have to ask you again for space to respond.
The speaker with whom Ms Ahern lakes issue, Dr Peter Waight, was deeply involved in the World Health Organisation's studies of the health effects of the Chernobyl accident. The RPlI is satisfied as to his competence in the subject and his borio fides as an impartial observer. Although Ms Ahern's letter seems to suggest otherwise, he dealt in detail at the conference with the increased incidence of thyroid cancer in children, recognising it to be radiation induced.
Evidently Ms Ahern would have preferred to hear a speaker who mirrored exactly her own position on the controversies, which clearly exist, about the precise causation of the many forms of ill health prevailing in the regions surrounding Chernobyl since the accident there in 1986. She is entitled to voice this preference, but it is not a valid basis for labelling the RPII as "one sided" on the health effects of Chernobyl.
Above all, it does not give Ms Ahern a basis for impugning the independence of the RPII's advice about the effects of Sellafield on Ireland. This advice is based on the findings of our own scientific work, and we stand over it fully. Yours, etc., Chief executive, Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland, 3 Clonskeagh Square, Clonskeagh Road, Dublin 14.