A team made up of Irish TDs and British MPs is to visit the Sellafield nuclear waste-reprocessing plant early next year to assess security at the plant.

The move was agreed in Bournemouth on Tuesday December 4, which was the venue of a two-day meeting of the Irish-British Interparliamentary Body.

The group, formed of members of the Dáil and members of the UK parliament, as well as representatives from the Scottish and Welsh assemblies and the administrations in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, staged a debate on Sellafield. The debate came 24 hours after judges at the International Law of the Sea tribunal in Hamburg rejected a bid from the Irish Government to halt this month’s recommissioning of a mixed-oxide (MOX) facility at Sellafield. The Irish Government argued that the £470 million development, on the Cumbrian coast opposite Ireland, broke international laws on sea pollution and posed safety and security concerns.

Meanwhile campaigners from Friends of the Earth (FoE) have warned a Sellafield September 11-type atrocity could have serious consequences for the north of England. The campaigners told the Commons’ environment committee’s inquiry into radioactive waste policy a terrorist attack could kill up to two million people.

Dr Rachel Western, FoE’s nuclear research officer, told MPs: “If somebody was to make the decision to drop a plane on Sellafield, it would be disastrous - it would wipe out the north of England.”

Waste at Sellafield is currently held in a liquid solution, which environmentalists warn could be widely dispersed in the case of a deliberate or accidental plane crash. (AMcE)