The Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003

Citation and commencement

1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Radioactive Substances (Basic Safety Standards) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2003 and shall come into operation on 1st May 2003.

Interpretation

2.—(1) The Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954(1) shall apply to these Regulations as it applies to an Act of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

(2) In these Regulations –

(a) “the Chief Inspector” means the chief inspector appointed by the Department under section 4 of the Radioactive Substances Act 1993(2);

(b) “the 1993 Act” means the Radioactive Substances Act 1993.

Duty of Chief Inspector to observe requirements of the Directive

3.—(1) In discharging his functions in relation to the disposal of radioactive waste under the 1993 Act, the Chief Inspector shall, whenever applicable, ensure that –

(a) all exposures to ionising radiation of any members of the public and of the population as a whole resulting from the disposal of radioactive waste are kept as low as reasonably achievable, economic and social factors being taken into account; and

(b) the sum of the doses resulting from the exposure of any members of the public to ionising radiation should not exceed the dose limits set out in Article 13 of the Directive (subject to the exclusions set out in Article 6(4) of the Directive).

(2) Shall have regard to the following maximum doses which may result from a defined source, for use at the planning stage of the radiation protection –

(a) 0.3 millisieverts per year from any source from which radioactive discharges are first made after 1st May 2003; or

(b) 0.5 millisieverts per year from the discharges from any single site.

(3) In discharging his duty under paragraph (1) the Chief Inspector shall observe the following requirements of the Directive –

(a) in estimating effective dose and equivalent dose, Title V, Articles 15 and 16;

(b) in estimating population doses, Article 45; and

(c) in relation to the responsibilities of undertakings, Article 47.

Amendment to the Radioactive Substances Act 1993

4.—(1) Section 15 (Further exemptions from sections 13 and 14) of the 1993 Act shall be amended as follows –

(a) In subsection (1) after “clocks and watches” (where those words first appear) there shall be inserted the following –

• “on or from any premises in the circumstances described in subsection (1A)”.

(b) After subsection (1) there shall be inserted –

“(1A) The circumstances referred to in subsection (1) are that –

(a) no radionuclide other than tritium, promethium 147 or radium 226 is present in any clock or watch on the premises (whether or not any radioactive waste arises from it),

(b) no such clock or watch contains more than one of those radionuclides, and

(c) either subsection (1B) or (1C) is satisfied.

(1B) This subsection is satisfied if the total quantity of tritium divided by 10⁹, plus the total quantity of promethium 147 divided by 10⁷, plus the total quantity of radium 226 divided by 10⁴, in all such clocks and watches does not exceed 1 (quantity in each case measured in becquerels).

(1C) This subsection is satisfied if –

(a) all such clocks and watches fall within a description specified in the first column of the table below,

(b) radioactive waste arises from no more than five of them,

(c) none of those five gives rise to a quantity of radioactive waste exceeding the figure in the third column of the Table corresponding to the relevant radionuclide listed in the second column.

TABLE

Type of clock or watch	Radionuclide	Relevant value (becquerels)
(i) Watches bearing radioluminescent deposits and intended to be worn or carried on the person	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	2.8 x 108 5.5 x 106 5.6 x 103
(ii) Clocks bearing radioluminescent deposits	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	3.7 x 108 7.4 x 106 7.4 x 103
(iii) Clocks or watches requiring greater luminosity than categories (i) or (ii) above, and having their dials marked at the time of manufacture with “T 25” (tritium), “Pm 0.5” (Promethium 147) or “Ra 1.5” (Radium 226)	Tritium Promethium 147 Radium 226	9.3 x 108 1.9 x 107 5.6 x 104
(iv) Watches containing small sealed glass tubes internally coated with a phosphor and filled with tritium gas	Tritium	7.4 x 109

Sealed with the Official Seal of the Department of the Environment on 2nd April 2003.

L.S.

Judena Goldring

A senior officer of the

Department of the Environment