RTE has still not shown a television drama depicting a nuclear disaster at Sellafield to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII), even though the agency requested a preview two months ago.

The two-part drama series, to be broadcast next weekend, depicts a radioactive cloud reaching Ireland after an explosion at the nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria.

Organisations that would be responsible for handling a real emergency at Sellafield are worried that the RTE drama is going to portray an unrealistic scenario and frighten viewers. The drama contains scenes of traffic chaos as panicked Dubliners try to flee the radioactivity before it arrives on the east coast.

Despite asking to see the programme in February, the RPII will not see it until Wednesday, just hours before a special screening for members of the press, leaving it too late for changes to be made.

“We asked to see it because we felt that any drama documentary of this nature, that might envisage an accident at a UK nuclear installation, obviously has the potential to create concern among the public,” said Ann McGarry, chief executive of the RPII. “We wanted to make sure that it would be a credible scenario.” McGarry said RTE would not give any details of the docudrama.

Fallout, which cost more than €1m, will be shown in two hour-long episodes next Sunday and Monday at 9.35pm. The broadcaster refused to give details of the show prior to Wednesday.

Made by Frontier Films, it features unknown actors to create a sense of realism. Frontier was given a tour of Sellafield by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd several years ago. In the initial stages of the production, it contacted agencies such as the RPII and the Department of the Environment, requesting information about emergency plans to cope with nuclear incidents.

RTE then appointed its own scientific experts to advise on the drama. John Large, a British nuclear consultant, was hired to give the programme-makers technical information about nuclear explosions.

Using computer programmes and satellite modelling, Large predicted what would happen if a cloud of radioactivity was released from Sellafield after an explosion in a waste tank (caused by kerosene that had leaked in from elsewhere on the site through an old sewer pipe). The initial blast triggers a series of explosions in a further six of the plant’s 20 tanks.

“That results in a fire and a massive release of radioactivity,” said Large, who formerly worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). About 4% of the radioactive material in the tanks escapes, forming a high-altitude cloud that drifts across the Irish Sea on an easterly wind. Northern Ireland is the first to receive a dose before the cloud sweeps down to Dublin.

In reality the kerosene at Sellafield is stored a long way from the high-level tanks, according to Large. “I said ‘Why don’t we somehow find a way to get this (kerosene) into the high-level waste tank area and let it go bang’. The scenario is not extraordinary. BNFL would say, ‘That can’t happen’. Well, of course it can’t because there isn’t a sewer between the (kerosene) and the tanks, but if there was, that’s the sort of potential there is.”

Ireland’s prevailing winds are southwesterly, but Large says it is possible to get a cold easterly wind from Russia for a few successive days “and that’s the one it was modelled on”.

Gerald Fleming, an RTE weather forecaster, will appear in the docudrama, which also features fake news bulletins that were shot in RTE and at BBC News 24 studios.

A group of tourists on a fishing boat in the Irish Sea is first affected by the radioactivity, said Large, who has yet to see the finished drama himself.

When news reaches Ireland of the nuclear explosion, panic sets in and people evacuate from the east coast. One scene shows traffic chaos involving hundreds of cars. The Irish government orders troops to control the situation.

Large, who will conduct a question and answer session at the media screening, said RTE was “very cautious and precise. They didn’t overstep the mark. They took the technical input very seriously, it was well researched and not bashing Sellafield.”

Fallout is scheduled to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the explosion at Chernobyl.

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