A Dáil committee has decided not to proceed with public hearings on nuclear energy between now and the general election.
The chairman of the Dáil Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Fianna Fáil TNoel O'Flynn, said the consensus of the committee was there would not be time to give justice to a hearing.
"We have a lot of business between now and the election and it would not have been possible to have fitted it in," he said.
PD committee member Fiona O Malley TD said she was "bitterly disappointed" and an important opportunity was lost. "This is a terrible, terrible mistake."
Meanwhile, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche raised Government concerns about the likely reopening of a controversial plant at Sellafield during a meeting with his British counterpart yesterday.
Mr Roche told the British secretary of state for the environment Alastair Darling, that the Thorp nuclear fuel reprocessing plant was a "a long-standing source of concern" for Irish people.