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     SCOTTISH NATIONAL PARTY http://www.snp.org.uk/
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     Sunday 16 June 1996 - For Immediate Release

     CUNNINGHAM CONDEMNS AUSTRALIAN WASTE AT DOUNREAY - "RENEWABLE RESEARCH
     CENTRE ONLY LONG-TERM FUTURE"

     Commenting on reports today [Sunday] that a consignment of Australian
     nuclear waste has arrived at Dounreay for reprocessing, the Scottish
     National Party's Environment Spokesperson Ms Roseanna Cunningham MP
     said that converting Dounreay into an international centre of
     excellence in renewable energy research was the only viable future for
     the plant. Ms Cunningham said:

     "It is totally unacceptable to the SNP and the Scottish people that
     Scotland should be turned into the world's nuclear dustbin.

     "The Dounreay management is trawling the world to take in other
     countries' nuclear laundry, but there is simply no public confidence in
     these reprocessing activities. Only last month, we had the revelation
     about the possible collapse of a shaft at Dounreay which has been used
     to dump nuclear waste.

     "The fact that countries such as Australia are so keen to send their
     nuclear waste to faraway Scotland tells us a great deal about the risks
     involved, and why this is so wrong on safety and environmental grounds.

     "The ongoing reprocessing of nuclear waste from around the world,
     combined with the fear of the Dounreay shaft leaking deadly particles,
     pose a serious danger to health and the environment, and undermine key
     Scottish industries such as farming, fishing, food processing and
     whisky, which are crucially dependent on a public perception of a clean
     environment.

     "Rather than act as a dump for the dirty end of the nuclear industry,
     the only long-term future for Dounreay - as the SNP have long proposed
     - is as a centre of excellence for research into renewable energy
     sources, which would support both long-term employment and the Highland
     environment."

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