The Socialist Party TD, Mr Joe Higgins, was "infuriated" by comments from the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr David Begg, according to a party colleague who visited him in Mountjoy Prison yesterday, write Mark Hennessy and Joe Humphreys.
Mr Mick Barry quoted Mr Higgins as saying that Mr Begg's remarks were "a deliberate stab in the back" to those who were against bin charges.
Mr Begg had called on Mr Higgins and his party colleague, Cllr Clare Daly, to purge their contempt of the High Court and "cool things down".
Both were sent to prison for a month last Friday for defying a High Court injunction prohibiting them from obstructing refuse collections in Dublin.
Mr Barry said prison rules did not allow Mr Higgins to speak to the media or issue press statements. He quoted Mr Higgins as saying that if Mr Begg could not "bring himself to articulate the feeling of the majority of trade union membership in opposition to the bin tax, he should have chosen a shamed silence".
Meanwhile the leader of the Labour Party, Mr Pat Rabbitte, has been clearly annoyed by the Labour TD Mr Tommy Broughan, after his admission that he does not pay bin charges.
Mr Broughan, along with Independent TDs Mr Tony Gregory and Mr Finian McGrath, Sinn Féin TD Mr Seán Crowe and Green Party TD Mr John Gormley, will visit Mr Higgins and Ms Daly at 11 a.m. today.
Mr Broughan met Mr Rabbitte in the party leader's office in Leinster House yesterday.
In an interview in the Star, Mr Broughan said: "I didn't want to be the one to talk the talk and not walk the walk, as I think the saying goes, so no, I don't pay them."
During the meeting, Mr Rabbitte "reminded" Mr Broughan that Labour did not advocate "now, or in the past" the non-payment of legitimately imposed State charges.
"While Tommy Broughan confirmed that he had not paid the charges, he fully accepted the party's policy and that he himself had not advocated the non-payment of charges," a spokesman said.
"There is a difference between somebody not paying a charge and one who advocates that other people should not pay it. He said he had never encouraged other people," the spokesman added.
Last night a spokesman for the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said the Minister was "disappointed that political representatives would rather demonstrate their opposition to a court ruling rather than address the waste challenge".
Mr Gormley was careful to point out that he strongly disagreed with Mr Higgins's opposition to bin charges.
"We have always advocated a 'pay per weight' or 'pay per volume' charge," he said, but he felt the prison sentences were excessive.
Fingal County Council has claimed to have restored refuse-collection services to 95 per cent of householders after two weeks of protests.