Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-15-Speech-2-378"
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"en.20051115.30.2-378"2
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"Mr President, I wish to summarise the situation. Two nuclear power plants have grown old and unsafe and must be decommissioned. The cost of closing the plants is almost EUR 2 billion. The ongoing maintenance of the closed plants will require the employment of an expert team for several decades or maybe a century. It has to be done and we are being told that the EU has to do it. Past mistakes are expensive. The only positive value of this disastrous situation is as a lesson for the future. Will we treat it as such? Will we learn from the consequences of our romance with nuclear power?
In the countries that decide to privatise their plants or change ownership, a dangerous game of hot potato is played with the responsibility of paying the decommissioning costs. We know that a nuclear power plant will not last indefinitely, but do we consider this before they are built? Decommissioning costs should be calculated in from the very beginning and someone must then step forward and take responsibility for the financial and organisational burden of cleaning up the nuclear waste that will be left behind.
Twenty-eight years ago Des O’Malley, then Minister for Industry and Commerce, told us that Ireland would not survive without nuclear power. We were told that we would be sitting in the dark without lights, that we would have to abandon our milking machines and go back to milking by hand and that we would have electricity rationing. Because the Irish people thought about the future, they said no. They considered the kind of problems we now face in decommissioning the two plants we are talking about and many other ageing nuclear monsters.
Ireland did not shut down for lack of nuclear power. We still do not have nuclear power and we have the strongest economy in the EU. Ireland’s economy has developed strongly despite the fact the country does not have nuclear power. I want to pay tribute to the Irish anti-nuclear campaigners.
I would also like to use this opportunity to ask decision-makers to consider the lessons of Lithuania, Slovakia and Ireland before deciding to set up a new generation of nuclear power plants. There are better, safer and cheaper ways to keep the wheels turning and the lights on."@en1
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