Environmental groups have criticised Ireland's abstention in a landmark EU vote to ban the approval of new genetically-modified food products until tougher legislation is introduced.
Genetic Concern said that the failure of the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to vote with the majority of EU environment ministers in favour of the moratorium on new GM products would reinforce Ireland's image as the "environmental pariah" of Europe.
"It is simply appalling that the Government is still behaving as a laggard member-state by refusing to vote in favour of, or even against, these new proposals", said Ms Sadhbh O'Neill, spokeswoman for Genetic Concern.
Mr Dempsey said the reason he had abstained in the vote in Brussels early yesterday morning was that he wanted first to consider the outcome of the consultation process he had set up. Genetic Concern and 18 other non-governmental organisations walked out of this consultation process last month.
Mr Dempsey insisted yesterday the process was "well advanced" and "very constructive".
The Minister accused Genetic Concern of hypocrisy by claiming that he had no consensus to bring to the meeting when it had "walked away" from the process.
All but four EU states - Ireland, the UK, Spain and Portugal - voted to suspend all new commercial releases of GM organisms until the governing legislation is revised and implemented. The decision effectively halts all new GMO approvals until the new licensing law is in place, probably not before 2002. No GM crops have been approved in the EU since April 1998 because of shortcomings in the existing approvals system.
Ms O'Neill called for a new consultation initiative comprising a lay jury and a "properly-organised agenda" to replace the "failed process" set up by Mr Dempsey.
The EU's decision represents a blow to biotechnology companies, but it will not affect existing field trials, such as those organised by Monsanto in Ireland.
