Environmental campaigners are leading a flotilla of boats intent on halting a consignment of radioactive waste bound for Cumbria.

Greenpeace's flagship ship the Rainbow Warrior led a handful of boats from Dublin port on Thursday while more vessels set sail further south from Arklow, in County Wicklow.

They hope to prevent a shipment of plutonium mixed oxide (Mox) fuel which has been sent back to the BNFL plant at Sellafield from Japan.

The ships carrying the cargo, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, will be shadowed by Irish navy and airforce craft as it makes its way through the Irish Sea.

The united voice from all the nations of the Irish Sea is that this should be the last plutonium transport by BNFL

Campaigner Shaun Burnie

The flotilla of 10 craft will sail to Holyhead in Wales and then along the coast to Scotland where more small boats and yachts will join the protest.

They will then attempt to locate the cargo ships which are due to arrive in the Irish Sea within days.

The five-tonne cargo of Mox fuel was sent back from Takahama in Japan after safety records at Sellafield, were exposed as false in 1999.

Greenpeace campaigner Shaun Burnie said: "After 100,000 kilometres this global nuclear pariah and its cargo of rejected plutonium Mox will receive the welcome it deserves.

Safety measures

"The united voice from all the nations of the Irish Sea is that this should be the last plutonium transport by BNFL."

The group believes the ships, which are fitted with 30mm cannon and guarded by UK Atomic Energy Authority police, are currently off the west coast of Madeira in international waters.

She added that activists had no intention of attempting to board or block the ships.

BNFL says the safety measures under which the shipment is being made have been inspected and approved of by independent authorities in the UK.