The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has criticised the Consumer Association of Ireland for its recent statement on the investigation into mysterious animal deaths in Askeaton, Co Limerick.
The EPA said the CAI comments on the agency's study were misleading and appeared "to be based on a misunderstanding of what is a lengthy and complex report on the Askeaton investigation".
In November Mr John Colgan, the CAI's environment spokesman, levelled a series of charges at the EPA, claiming the Askeaton report was a "broad-brush exoneration of local industry".
But Dr Padraic Larkin of the EPA said local industry was not implicated in the animal health problems and the study was not "broad-brush". "Could he consider the possibility that they were not polluting?" he asked.
Last August's report found that pollution levels from Aughinish, Moneypoint and Tarbert were not high enough to cause animal or human illness. The report could not point to specific causes of the problems. Co-ordinated by the EPA, it included researchers from Teagasc, the Veterinary Laboratory Service and the health board.
The CAI also accused the EPA of procrastination in beginning the investigation and said the five-volume Askeaton report was "a massive indigestible tome". This ignored the fact that a 29-page summary report was also produced.
An Taisce had been originally mooted as partner with the CA in drawing up the response to the report. However, Mr Tony Lowes, a committee member of An Taisce, told the CAI he was unaware of this.
"This document does not represent the views of An Taisce and was not authorised by An Taisce at local or national level. We cannot support these views and would be grateful if you would remove all references to An Taisce from your work," he wrote.
References to An Taisce were dropped as a result.
A further charge made by the CAI was that the publication last August was orchestrated to coincide with the Dáil recess. The CAI described the study's £4.2 million cost as "unsatisfactory and disquieting".
In a radio interview, Mr Peter Dorgan, a vet with the CAI, in dismissing the findings of his colleagues in the Department of Agriculture and Teagasc, claimed an equally valid report could be produced for £4,500, almost a thousand times cheaper.
Dr Larkin said he had been "wearied" by the CAI comments, and that a study had been carried out as scientifically as possible over a six-year period. The CAI had rejected an offer by the EPA to discuss the statement before its release.
The final report on Askeaton, which followed three interim reports, came out in August because that was when it came back from the printers, Dr Larkin added.
Being in the middle of the "silly season", it was guaranteed blanket coverage. "It was no advantage to me to do it in August," he says.
The costings included the purchase of one farm and the rental of another by the Department of Agriculture, and the services of 33 personnel from different agencies and external consultants over the period. The Public Accounts Committee, which held a meeting with the agencies, made no criticism of the study's cost scale.
Dr Kevin Kelleher, public health director of the Mid-Western Health Board, added: "I think people have to be careful about how information is interpreted and presented because of the danger of how it is then seen." Among the CAI's claims were that there were "much higher chances of dying from various forms of cancer within the range of operation of the various factories in the Limerick region".
This was rejected by Dr Kelleher, who said the board spent £1.2 million on its human health studies and found no evidence of a greater cancer risk in the area as a result of industrial pollution.
"The difficulty about the investigation was that it was carried out using a limited amount of data because that was all that was available," he added.
Percentage differences in cancer cases could appear great in some instances, but they were representative of small numbers of people. "You are starting to get into small numbers even in Co Limerick," he said.
In the Mid-Western Health Board area, comprising Clare, Limerick and north Tipperary, there are approximately 1,500 new cancer cases annually, but the report found there was no increased incidence of cancers in the Askeaton area in 1994 and 1995.
However, the health board is carrying out a further study of the incidence of cancer in the area. For the first time, the specific areas where the cancers occur will be incorporated in the study.
"That will allow us do a far more detailed analysis of whether there are clusters of types of cancers in the mid-west and in Co Limerick," Dr Kelleher said.
The CAI also attempted to link cancer outbreaks with sulphur-dioxide emissions. Around half of the State's emissions of this gas is produced in the region, principally from the ESB's coal-burning power plant at Moneypoint, Co Clare, and its oil-burning station at Tarbert, Co Kerry.
But sulphur dioxide is not a carcinogen, Dr Larkin points out, and, in any case, although produced locally, most of it ends up as acid rain in Scandinavia where it is a cause of concern for the authorities there.
Dr Larkin has noted that the agency was "late into the field", a further point of criticism by the CAI because the investigation was largely retrospective.
Many of the reported problems in the Askeaton area had subsided by the time the EPA became involved in 1995 following a request by a minister of government.