US AMBASSADOR, Thomas Foley, wrote to the Government last year expressing his disappointment at its change of policy on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
An internal briefing paper prepared for Government junior ministers discloses that Mr Foley wrote to Minister for Health, Mary Harney, in July 2007 stating his opposition to the current abstention policy.
"The US perceives this change in policy as detrimental to biotechnology and a possible barrier to trade," states the document, which has been seen by The Irish Times.
The formation of a new coalition involving the Green Party led to the change in policy from a "positive but precautionary" stance to one of increasing abstention when it came to GMOs.
Under its agriculture and food heading, the programme for government set as an aim "the establishment of an All-Ireland GM-Free Zone".
The abstention policy was also criticised by Fine Gael's agriculture spokesman Michael Creed yesterday.
He said the agreement of Fianna Fáil to include this in the programme "pandered to the unfounded and questionable claims of the anti-GMO lobby.
"The line about GMOs in the programme turns a blind eye to the positive contribution of GMOs and biotechnology in a whole range of areas, including the development of insulin," he said.
Mr Creed said that Irish agriculture had been burdened by an extra bill of €60 million last year because of millers being required to keep feedstuffs GM-free.
When asked if Fine Gael policy was to allow the use of GMOs, Mr Creed said that what was needed was an honest and open-minded debate about the benefits that biotechnology and GMO can bring. He said that that debate was absent at present.
The Department of Agriculture last night pointed out that the commitment in the programme for government was aimed more at discouraging the cultivation of GM crops in Ireland rather than a prohibition of imports of animal feed containing GM ingredients.
According to the department: "Over 90 per cent of the protein material used for ruminant feed is imported from the US in the form of maize distillers dried grains (by-products of the US milling industry) and maize gluten feed (by-products from the US distilling industry). "Since practically all of the maize used in these two industries comes from authorised GM varieties it follows that a very high proportion of the by-products imported are GM." The department also noted that the there had been no demand to date for the cultivation of GM varieties in Ireland.