In the Seanad on 27 February 2002, I said:

Good business management does not involve explaining why certain targets were not achieved or why success was not forthcoming; it is about getting things done.

I have to confess that I am amazed that we are debating the scandal of Sellafield once more in February 2002. Two years have passed since it was revealed that BNFL had deliberately and systematically falsified safety statistics over a long period of time.

The revelations destroyed for me forever the credibility of the company that runs Sellafield and shamed the British Government, which so slavishly protects every move made at Sellafield. The scandal of the falsified figures brought about a radical change in public opinion and attitudes along the east coast, for example, in Newry, Dundalk and Skerries.

The deception was the last straw and suddenly people had enough. Those who had listened to people talking for years started to want something to happen.

I made an accusation in relation to the sincerity of Government policy during a debate in this House at the time. The Minister of State, Deputy Jacob, listened to my points but I know he did not agree when I said the Government was pulling its punches as it did not want to upset its relationship with the British Government on Northern Ireland.

The Government was making all the right noises by way of public protest, but its body language transmitted a different message. In effect, I charged the Government at that time with giving the UK the impression that regardless of what it said in public, it was not really all that pushed about Sellafield, a charge which was greeted with shock and horror.

The Minister of State said the Government was perfectly sincere and that it appreciated the change in public attitude. From then on, he said, the Government would be tougher and more aggressive than ever and no stone would be left unturned to ensure that Sellafield was closed.

The Government's assurances are beginning to sound a little hollow, two years on, in the light of what has and, particularly, what has not happened in the interim. My accusation is beginning to look even more credible than it did at that time.

One could understand the tenacity of the British Government's attitude to Sellafield if it had a military or national security dimension, but it has not even attempted to make such an argument. The scope of the facility has been increased for purely commercial purposes; the United Kingdom has equated its national interest with greed.

The people of Ireland and a large part of Europe have been put at risk for the sake of simple greed. As part of its commercial strategy, the UK is prepared to quibble, prevaricate and hide behind every fig leaf it can find and it has searched for many.

When all else fails, the British authorities are prepared to renege on every promise that has been made in the past and to cover up every new instance of risk. I suggest that they are prepared to lie through their teeth, if necessary.

I do not use the word "lie" too frequently, but it seems to me that the British Government smiles politely as it does exactly that.

Would it dare indulge in such brazen behaviour if it was not sure the Irish Government would tolerate it?

Would they have dared to take such an arrogant and dismissive attitude as they did at the international tribunal if they had not known in advance that they were fighting against a straw man, someone whose heart was not really in it?

Much of what has been said here tonight is to do with those legal shenanigans. The past few years have shown the legal moves the Minister has talked about for what they really are, a convenient way of buying time and waiting for public anger to abate.

A matter like this will always be settled ultimately by political means rather than by recourse to the courts.

What is needed now and has been needed all along is a strong political initiative by the Government. The task is very simple, to convince the British Government that the Irish people mean business on this issue and will not take no for an answer. They will demand that something happens.

Much will be made of the international allies the Government has gathered and the legal actions of the last couple of years. The reality is that it is only when the Taoiseach leads a delegation of other European Prime Ministers to 10 Downing Street and demands comprehensive and immediate action that this much talked about international alliance will have any real meaning.

We need support at the political level, not just at the legal level.

The Government has not understood the vehemence, the strength of feeling in the country on this issue. I worry that if they have not understood it and done something about it, they may find that their lack of action will become an important political issue in the general election.

In the Seanad on 2 March 2000, I had said:

The time for ritual-hand wringing about Sellafield is now surely past. The time is past for being fobbed off by lies by one government and ineffectual rhetorical gestures from another.

I sense the patience of the Irish people has been finally exhausted. I gather this from the Minister of State and the speakers here today. It is up to both Governments to realise this and act accordingly.

The recent  report from the UK Health and Safety Executive proves conclusively what many of us thought all along, and what some people have said consistently for many years. 

The truth that is now incontrovertible is that the public facade so cleverly erected around Sellafield has been from start to finish a complete tissue of lies. The British Government has been lying through its teeth. 

What is really significant about this report is not the specific lies and falsifications, but what it tells us about the underlying persistent, deliberate nature and culture of that deception. 

This culture of deception was not the creation of lazy or incompetent inspectors. 

Nor was it something that a self-serving management put in place to defend its empire. 

It was a culture of deception sanctioned by, nodded at and ultimately approved of by the British Government. 

This report is the final piece that brings the whole house of cards crashing down.

That is not the worst of the story, nor is it the end of the guilty list, because I am going to come closer to home. 

The most shocking co-conspirator in this affair has not been anyone on the other side of the Irish Sea, it is the Irish Government - not this Government in particular but successive Irish Government that have fiddled with the problem dating back to the days when Sellafield was called Windscale. 

Let us be frank and honest about this. 

Despite the consistently mounting concern of ordinary Irish people, successive Governments of all colours have pulled their punches on this issue. 

As a country, Ireland has never taken the Sellafield problem seriously enough. 

It has gone through all the ritual motions of protest, but its body language has sent a totally different message to the British. The consistent message from Irish Governments of all political complexions has been, "Don't worry, we won't rock the boat on this". 

This is the truth of the matter and this is the reason it must stop. 

As far as the Irish people are concerned, the game is up. 

If the Government fails to recognise that fundamental sea-change, that failure will be at its peril.

Why have successive Governments conspired - I use that word purposely - with successive British Governments to sweep this life and death issue under the carpet?

The answer is depressingly simple, that is, Northern Ireland. The thinking is simplistic and wrong that we dare not offend the British over Sellafield because it will undermine the relationship we need to have with them over the North. 

A large cabal of officials in the Irish Government service, mainly in the Department of Foreign Affairs, are simply terrified of upsetting the British and offending them over Sellafield. They believe, totally wrongly, that we cannot be beastly to the British over Sellafield while being lovey-dovey to them over the North. 

Nothing could be further from the truth. The British themselves specialise in carrying a love-hate relationship with a whole range of international partners. Look around the world at how they handle them. They simply follow their national interests which we should learn to do. They do not trade one off against the other, they fight for their corner in every case, as do the French and the Americans.

We are too nice, or else we have not learned how to do that. As a result, the timid but powerful people who are terrified of offending the British leave a dead hand over the formulation and execution of our policy on Sellafield. No matter what anybody across the Government proposes to do about it, if it is likely to offend the British it gets shot down before it crosses the Irish Sea. 

The person most to be sympathised with in this sorry saga - which would be farcical if it were not so serious - is the unfortunate person in each Government who becomes the Minister for Sellafield and I watched the Minister last night.

Without exception, these Ministers have been sincere, intelligent, well meaning and very capable. The present Minister is one of the best of a very distinguished band over the years and is very competent. They enter the job with great resolutions and then have the frustration of meeting a brick wall, put in place by people in Ireland, not somebody on the other side of the Irish Sea. Even more frustrating, this is a brick wall that they must not admit even exists, so the pantomime they have to play becomes almost a shadow play.

No matter how great their embarrassment, they have to stand up and read their lines - the lines they know are hollow and which an increasing number of their audience realise are hollow. 

They stand up and read those lines as though they were part of a play. Every time the show goes out, a vast amount of energy is expended behind the scenes on creating new lines, new bits of stage business, in a vain attempt to convince an increasingly sceptical audience that this time they mean business. 

Now that time has changed. We have unfortunately seen over the past week or two that the lines have not changed, at least not yet, but the audience has changed. Perhaps they are changing now and I am impressed by the Minister's contribution today. 

No matter what it says or promises, the British Government is simply no longer credible over Sellafield.

No matter what it says or promises, the Irish Government is simply no longer credible over Sellafield. 

We have no say over what the British Government may do, so let us concentrate on what the Irish Government can do. 

The time for words is over and the time for actions has come. This is what the people want and this time they will not be put off. If the Government denies them, the people will find some way of doing the job themselves. The Minister's heart is in the right place but this is the time for action.

 Sellafield 'falsification' report