MLAs should have a mature debate about future use of nuclear power in Northern Ireland

Belatedly, the UK government has come up with a sensible energy plan to slash carbon emissions.

The strategy revolves around boosting renewables such as wind power and solar.

It necessarily includes nuclear too.

There has been a great reluctance to embrace and defend nuclear power in Europe in recent years. Nuclear accidents are both misunderstood and their impact exaggerated.

The Chernobyl disaster, for example, was an appalling case study in a badly managed nuclear plant under the old Soviet system and it led to a wide area being contaminated, but did not cause anywhere near as many direct deaths as first thought (according to a major 2005 World Health Organisation study).

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011 resulted in at least one linked death and a handful of injuries.

While these were terrible accidents, from which lasting lessons need to be learned, they are nowhere near catastrophic enough to derail nuclear as a fundamental part of the energy future.

Yet that is what happened in Germany, for example, which foolishly pledged to close all its nuclear plants after Fukushima, thus increasing its reliance on polluting coal and on Russian gas. Such a daft response helped to embolden President Vladimir Putin.

Boris Johnson’s government therefore is right to include non carbon producing nuclear energy as part of the UK’s vision. Such a move was all the more essential after Ukraine showed the danger of being over reliant on other nations for energy needs.

Yet nuclear remains off the table in Ireland, north or south. There is not even a call to introduce some of the small nuclear reactors that are seen as a potentially crucial part of future energy provision.

There needs to be a mature debate at Stormont about the pros and cons of nuclear.