asked the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy if his attention has been drawn to a long standing leak from a fuel storage silo in the Windscale nuclear plant, which, despite being discovered in October 1976, is still leaking and appears to be unrepairable and if he will make representations to the British authorities in this regard.

The Nuclear Energy Board have been keeping in touch with the situation concerning this leak since it was first reported. It has been traced to a defect in an old concrete silo used to store radioactive waste which largely consists of cladding removed from irradiated fuel elements and stored under water.

The leak is relatively small and radiation surveys continue to show that the radioactivity released from the silo is retained in the soil close to the silo. There has been no exposure of any worker on the site above the permitted limits and since there is no contamination outside the site there is, therefore, no hazard to the public.

A joint study by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the operators of the Windscale plant, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., on the most appropriate remedial measures to be adopted has been completed and is expected to be published shortly.

Am I to take it that the Minister would be concerned about a leak in a plant which is taking a number of years to repair and which ultimately discharges into the Irish Sea?

The leak is apparently of minute proportions. It is not leaking into the atmosphere but down into the soil at some depth. I understand that men have been working within a short distance of the silo in question since the leak was discovered. Since they have not been affected, I am sure that no one here will be affected.