STAFF at Dounreay fired dum-dum bullets from a high velocity rifle in an attempt to sink floating waste containers in its controversial shaft where chemical and nuclear waste was deposited, it emerged yesterday.

It was revealed that these wastes floating in the shaft had become an operational problem, and that radiation doses to shaft operators were becoming unacceptable.

An official inventory of the shaft, published by the UK Atomic Energy Authority's waste management group, also describes the practice of unrecorded fly-tipping in the shaft under the hours of darkness.

The inventory, which contains the controversial details of the missing 170kg of highly enriched uranium, portrays a relaxed regime at the Caithness plant 35 years ago, and serves to underline the degree of complexity of the nuclear legacy left to the present management.

Dounreay's operators enjoyed some better headlines yesterday, with the announcement that its privatised wing is to link up with two Japanese companies to create at least 130 jobs at a #12m battery-cell production plant in Thurso.

However, some eyes were raised at the high level of financial support from Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which is making available a #7.2m funding package.

In the House of Commons yesterday, one of the bitterest clashes ever between the Prime Minister and the leader of the SNP erupted as the Nationalists attempted to drag Tony Blair into the Dounreay debacle.

Alex Salmond challenged Mr Blair at Prime Minister's Question Time to account for where the allegedly missing uranium from Dounreay had gone.

Mr Blair fumed that the SNP leader was being ''utterly irresponsible'' in questioning the plant's safety and, in a markedly personal attack, told him: ''To alarm the public in this way is irresponsible in the extreme, and, may I say, entirely typical.''

Mr Salmond claimed afterwards that the Prime Minister was ''rattled'' because the issue had

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touched a raw nerve. ''Such Prime Ministerial complacency in the face of the succession of incidents and mounting concern is as frightening as it is extraordinary.''

Mr Blair repeated to the Commons assertions that claims of supposedly missing uranium were based on a misinterpretation of 30-year-old records, incomplete by modern standards. ''No such material has been sent from Dounreay for use for UK weapons purposes.''

Leading independent nuclear consultant Dr John Large, said last night: ''The Prime Minister has said that it didn't go for such a use, which is probably right. It would have gone to some other plant first for some further work.

''Such movements were disguised in this way all the time, not least so that Ministers could make denials with a clean conscience. I have seen it at first hand. Everyone was at it at the time, every country was.''

The Dounreay shaft inventory reports: ''Wastes floating in the shaft gradually became an operational problem. By 1965, doses to shaft operators were becoming unacceptable, and it was suggested that wastes should be 'shot through' using a high velocity rifle.''

A note dated February 1966 states: ''Recently the firing of bullets into the bags and other containers in order to sink them below water has been tried on an experimental basis. This has been successful and it would be desirable to repeat the firing once every, say, two months in order to keep conditions under reasonable control.

''Discussions with staff involved at the time confirmed that floating bags and drums were shot through using a 0.22 rifle during 'silent hours' (night). Bullets were high velocity 'dum-dums', which left a small hole on entry to the waste container and a large one on exit.

''The most important point regarding shaft wastes is that many drums and packages which contained lighter wastes are likely to be punctured therefore no longer intact.''

It also says: ''No member of any routine shaft operations team was present during disposals in 'silent hours' shifts, and for this reason, no one person has a complete recollection of shaft disposals. It is now acknowledged some disposals were not recorded on the shaft logbooks as they were carried out by other shift teams on silent hours.''

Anti-nuclear campaigner Mrs Lorraine Mann said last night: ''Having read this report, I have run out of adjectives. Every page you turn there is further evidence of breathtaking negligence and incompetence, and abuses of the secrecy that protected the management at Dounreay.

''We were told everything was all right then by the people who were allowing rifles to be fired into the shaft and fly-tipping. Their successors are telling us now that everything is all right. Why on earth should anyone believe them?''