Deputy Pat O'Malley.

On a point of order, I trust that I will be permitted some latitude on my three Priority Questions.

You will, Deputy, if time permits. I have asked the House for its co-operation. Deputy O'Malley's Question No. 71 has been replied to and consequently will not go up again in Priority Questions so I am allowing him another supplementary or two.

Would the Minister not agree that the actions taken so far by the Government in relation to the call for the closure of Sellafield have not been effective? He has outlined various courses of action which have been taken, but obviously they have not resulted in the closure of Sellafield or anything near to that. I ask him to consider other forms of action that are available to him of which he has not availed. Those four courses of action are in the legal area. Deputy McCartan referred to one of them under the EURATOM Treaty under Articles 37 and 38 under which the Minister has available a process whereby he can apply for directives to be imposed on plants such as Sellafield to control the level of radioactivity which emanates from such plants. We have never sought for such directives to be applied. If directives are handed down and are ignored, we have the automatic facility of bringing the offenders before the European Court and forcing them to comply with a directive requiring the operators of the plant to set minimum standards for radioactive waste. Why does the Minister not proceed along those lines, given that his actions to date, while they are worthwhile in themselves, have not achieved positive results?

I do not accept the last point. In regard to the Paris meeting, we achieved a major step forward in raising the matter of the use of the best available technology in relation to pollution from nuclear plants.

It has no timescale.

I raised with the Commissioner for Energy and twice with the Commissioner for the Environment, as recently as ten days ago, the question of the Commission bringing forward the type of proposals the Deputy is speaking about under the Euratom Treaty. I want to see an inspectorate which will monitor the operations of and emissions from these plants on a proper basis, rather than depending on the health and safety operations in various countries. Every possible action at European level is being taken. The Government have also taken court action. A case is already proceeding at the European Court on the question of emissions from nuclear plants. This is the Luxembourg v. France case. Because it is so far advanced we have decided to associate ourselves with the Luxembourg case. This is the quickest means.