Pressure is growing to have the shipment of radioactive material due to pass through Irish territorial waters this month stopped.
Earlier today, SIPTU general president Mr Des Geraghty added his voice to the chorus of objectors who are opposing a shipment of rejected British plutonium.
And this evening, Labour MEP Mr Proinsias De Rossa called on the President of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox, to intervene.
"This shipment contains dangerous products being returned by Japan which had discovered that quality control records for the manufacturing process had been falsified at Sellafield. The shipments are a serious environmental hazard to coastal states and the high seas," he said.
"I urge the President of the European Parliament to call on both the Commission and the Council to intervene with the UK Government to have this and any further such shipments stopped," he added.
Earlier, Mr Geraghty, president of the country's biggest trade union, described the shipment as 'a floating terrorist target and an environmental hazard to the world's oceans and costal states". The controversial shipment is due to travel through Irish seas next week. The nuclear cargo, which originates in Sellafield, was first delivered to Japan in 1999 but was rejected by the Japanese once it was discovered that British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) had falsified safety data.
The Irish Government opposed the opening of the BNFL MOX plant, which creates nuclear fuel from plutonium reprocessed at the British Sellafield Thorp plant.
Greenpeace met Irish Coast Guard officials last week where officials said the MOX-carrying ships, the Pacific Pintailand Pacific Teal, had a right of "innocent passage" in the Irish Sea once they remained outside the State's 12-mile territorial limit.
Greenpeace has requested the deployment of the Naval Service in the Irish Sea to monitor the shipment.
Speaking to The Irish Timeslast week, Mr John Bowler of Greenpeace said: "Given that BNFL has a record of lying consistently, why should we assume that these ships are going to stay outside Ireland's 12-mile limit?"
The organisation is planning a peaceful protest as the ships sail through the Irish Sea between September 12th and 16th.
Meanwhile, Minister Martin Cullen TD., gave a presentation on the preservation of energy to ministers at the Earth Summit in South Africa.
Raising the issue of Nuclear fuel, the minister called for its exclusion from a proposed initiative on the preservation of energy in developing countries.
He also announced his intention to build a political alliance of like-minded nations who consider nuclear fuel an unacceptable risk.
Belgium Austria Greece and Denmark all supported the move.
