Ireland & Sellafield - poss legal action (historic)
Posted: 31st December 2025
Editorial: Ireland has long pushed exaggerated claims about the nuclear risk from Sellafield. We report cabinet papers today that reveal that Ireland considered suing the UK over scares at its nuclear plants. It reflected a wider ignorance about nuclear power, that has latterly even affected a country as hitherto scientific and rigorous as Germany. And it highlights a unionist failure to get to grips with such wider matters of interest. Sellafield has for decades been the subject of ill-founded, indeed almost superstitious, concerns as to the risk it poses to Ireland. There has never been any proof of either an increased risk of
risk of cancer caused
by negligible, low-level radioactive waste in the Irish Sea, or indeed a
serious risk of atmospheric fallout even in the event of a calculated
attack on the site. Republic of Ireland experts in such risk have confirmed
that dangers are low, yet Sellafield has been a long source of grievance in
a country that is currently launching a hypocritical legal action against
the UK on legacy.
Belfast Newsletter 29th Dec 2025
The Irish government considered taking legal action against Sellafield in
the mid-1990s, according to archive documents. Then-taoiseach John Bruton
raised the issue with British prime minister John Major after several
safety incidents over a short period in the 1990s. Documents published as
part of the annual release of National Archives in Dublin showed that
possible legal action over Sellafield and other nuclear incidents was
explored at the time.
Eastern Daily Press 29th Dec 2025