The push to lift Ireland’s nuclear ban: Going nuclear or nowhere?

“You can go into Harvey Norman in the morning and buy a solar panel. You can’t go anywhere and buy a small modular nuclear reactor.”

By Louise Byrne, RTE, 12 Jun 2026

From the backbenches of Fianna Fáil in recent months has emerged a political push to lift the ban in Ireland on nuclear power generators.

What’s behind the move to ‘go nuclear’ now? And is it a viable option, or a distraction from already proven renewable technologies?

In the late 1970s Ireland had its own version of Woodstock. Thousands of demonstrators descended on Carnsore Point to attend carnival-like protests against the development of the country’s first nuclear plant.

ESB engineers had chosen the Co Wexford site for its low population, stable geology and access to the Irish Sea for plant cooling.

Minister for Energy at the time, Desmond O’Malley dubbed the protesters “members of the flat-Earth society” hindering Ireland’s entry into the atomic age.

Yet the scale of opposition, the discovery of gas off Kinsale and the Three Mile Island accident in the US eventually led to the withdrawal of political support for the Carnsore Point project.

The u-turn was so pronounced by the late 1990s legislation was introduced to veto any future nuclear production.

Two Acts contain legislative blocks – the 1999 Electricity Regulation Act and 2024 Planning and Development Act, but there is no constitutional impediment to nuclear power. And for the first time in decades, the issue is back on the political agenda.

Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor has introduced a bill which would reverse the legislative ban. The proposal has been supported by both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste……………………………………………………………..

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman described the idea as Government “kite flying”.

“The nuclear industry promises to deliver at a cheap price on a reasonable timescale but it doesn’t happen,” he told the programme.

“We should double down on delivering renewable energy, cutting bills for consumers and giving us energy security.”

Going nuclear, or going nowhere fast?

The war in Ukraine has highlighted our dependence on imported fuel and the argument goes that nuclear power may provide an additional low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels; one that can complement renewable sources.

The optimism of nuclear proponents lies in new technology called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs). These are smaller reactors that require less cooling but that can produce up to a third of the power of large, conventional reactors.

Prefabricated units can be manufactured, shipped and installed on site, making them more affordable to build than large power reactors, according to the Institute for Atomic Energy Agency.

However, the new technology is still in development and is years away from being deployed at scale, said Dr Paul Deane, Senior Lecturer in Clean Energy Futures at University College Cork.

“There’s lots of uncertainty around the costs and capability of the technology and big questions on what you do with the nuclear waste.”

While keeping an open mind on its potential, Dr Deane cautioned that SMR technology was not yet commercially available.

“You can go into Harvey Norman in the morning and buy a solar panel. You can’t go anywhere and buy a small modular nuclear reactor.

“When something doesn’t exist in the commercial world everyone is able to be right and wrong about it because we’ve nothing to benchmark against.”

The delivery of nuclear power requires supply chains with a steady supply of raw materials as well as large workforces of highly specialised engineers. China and Russia are the only countries currently with operational small reactors, although Canada is developing the first such facility in a G7 nation.

“They started building it last year. It’s probably going to take about five years for it to be developed but then we’ve got to see, does it work?,” Dr Deane said.

For people like Roderic O’Gorman, the obvious step to improve our grid capacity while meeting climate goals is not untested nuclear technology, it’s investment in battery storage and renewable generation.

“Spain made a call after the Ukraine war to go with renewables, to go with solar. They now have the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe,” he said

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Small Modular Reactors are among the technologies being examined by the Sustainable Energy Authority as part of its Decarbonised Electricity System Study. It will present the Government with a range of options for decarbonising Ireland’s electricity system post-2030.

A draft technical report noted “SMRs are not expected to be available before 2045. Moderate scale deployment may be possible by 2050, but it is plausible that no nuclear fission will be deployed by 2050.”

“Optimistic scenarios” envisaged that SMRs could complement renewables by providing stable, low-carbon baseload power needed for grid stability, but legal complexity, upfront investment, and public acceptance remain significant hurdles, the report said.

The SEAI has cautioned that the report is provisional. “Subsequent work, that is currently under way, will provide a more precise assessment of the potential for the (decarbonising) technologies to be adopted within the Irish electricity system.

“Specific conclusions should be based on the final publication.”

Safety concerns have also not gone away, according to anti-nuclear activist Adi Roche who cited Russia’s occupation of the Zaporizhia nuclear plant in Ukraine as evidence of the technology’s inherent security flaws.

“Nuclear facilities themselves can function as potential radiological weapons — “dirty bombs” whose consequences could be catastrophic without a single warhead being deployed,” she wrote in the Irish Examiner.

………………………………………………. Environmentalists contend that every euro invested in an Irish nuclear energy project is money that isn’t spent on green energy, grid resilience or large batteries that could smooth out renewable supplies.

There is no need, they argue, to revisit the Carnsore Point debate.https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2026/0612/1578039-the-push-to-lift-irelands-nuclear-ban-going-nuclear-or-nowhere/

June 17, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Ireland, spinbuster