The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been accused of "cynical news management" over its announcement that licences have been granted for the operation of waste incinerators in counties Cork and Meath.
Green Party finance spokesman and TD for Cork South Central Dan Boyle said the timing of the unexpected announcement of licences for Ringaskiddy and Duleek showed the EPA was acting at the behest of the Government.
"In the case of Ringaskiddy the EPA received Dr Jonathan Derham's completed report on the 13th of July. The Agency subsequently postponed two announcement dates in July and October, giving an impression that serious consideration was being given to not issuing these licences.
"I now believe that the EPA has been engaged in a cynical exercise of withholding its announcement on issuing these licences until the news agenda could be preoccupied with other news stories, thereby burying the effect of what are unpopular decisions," Mr Boyle said.
"Unless the EPA is prepared to offer to me a more reasonable explanation as to why a report they received in July is only now becoming public, then I will take it as yet another example of this supposedly independent agency acting at the behest of the government and its political priorities.
The EPA declined to comment on Mr Boyle's claims about the long-running controversy over incineration.
The EPA granted Indaver Ireland a licence to incinerate municipal and hazardous waste in Cork. The licence for the Co Meath, facility, 5 miles southwest of Drogheda only applies to municipal waste.
Mr Boyle today also hit out at was the "cynicism" of the Minister for State at the Department of the Environment, Batt O'Keeffe and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Micheal Martin both of whom are TDs in the constituency where the Ringaskiddy incinerator is due to be located.