Sir, - On behalf of the Sellafield workforce and the community of West Cumbria, and as the elected secretary of the nuclear workforce's campaigning organisation, I beg to ask the following questions:
Why is the Irish Government seeking to bring a case in respect of the Sellafield MOX plant, a fuel manufacturing plant that produces no liquid discharges to sea, to the OSPAR Arbitration Committee, a body whose sole function is the preservation from contamination of the North East Atlantic by man-made discharges of chemicals, radioactivity and other materials?
Why are 300 jobs directly in SMP, and 1,800 other jobs in West Cumbria, being put at risk by the Irish Government in pursuit of an action that has no basis in substance?
It is very important that industries such as ours should be subject to continual scrutiny and challenged to ensure we are operating to the highest standards of safety. But we, the workforce, respectfully suggest that we have rights too, one of which is the right not to have our livelihoods threatened by spurious actions that appear to be motivated more by domestic political considerations than by any appreciation of the environmental facts. - Yours, etc.,
Howard Rooms, Secretary, National Campaign for the Nuclear Industry, BNFL, Sellafield, Cumbria, England.