Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Embassy Sellafield picket

Several hundred protestors joined a picket at the British Embassy in Dublin last Wednesday, 23 January, to demand "the complete and verifiable decommissioning" of the nuclear plant at Sellafield.

"Dundalk is 63 miles from Sellafield. The radioactive material which is spewed into the sea every day will take over 200,000 years, in the case of TC99, and 16 million years, in the case of Iodine 129, to disappear," said Arthur Morgan, from Louth. "This radioactive material is damaging out health. The results are that all along our East coast, deaths from cancer are rising. Local survey results for Louth show 13.7 deaths from cancer per month."

Tim Hourigan of the Shut Down Sellafield Campaign and Chris Ó Rálaigh of Dublin Ógra Shinn Féin spoke for all the young people at the picket about their anger at the British government's decision, in the face of EU and world opinion, to expand this nuclear plant. The picket was organised by Ógra Shinn Féin to protest the opening of the Sellafield MOX nuclear power plant.