THE High Court has been told that a claim made last week about the planting of genetically engineered sugar beet causing irretrievable environmental damage was "very emotive and immensely misleading".
Monsanto Ltd, the international life sciences company, is behind plans at the Teagasc centre in Carlow to produce a new super sugar beet.
It would be immune to the company's own powerful weed killer, RoundUp, thereby providing farmers with a selective weed killer which would be harmless to the main crop.
Ms Fidelma Macken SC, for the company, said the protocol under which the growth test would be monitored was so strict it avoided the possibility of accidental pollen dispersal.
Ms Clare Watson, a member of Genetic Concern, of Foster Avenue, Mount Merrion, Dublin, was last week given leave in the High Court to challenge the experimental trials. She said health, along with other environmental matters, would be jeopardised if the project proceeded.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan yesterday accepted the undertaking of Monsanto that no planting would be carried out until the matter came before the High Court again next Monday.
He was told that for the trials to go ahead seed planting would have to take place by Tuesday. Mr Justice Moriarty had earlier granted a temporary order restraining planting of sugar beet seeds in Oak Park, Carlow, until yesterday.
Monsanto plc manufactures RoundUp. It was alleged the experimental sugar beet would be doctored with genes from a bacteria, a virus and a flower rendering it immune to the company's own weed killer.
It had been claimed that as soon as the seeds were planted the situation would become irretrievable as the organism would then be released and loose.
Ms Macken, opposing a further adjournment of the case yesterday, described this claim as "very emotive" and "immensely misleading".
She told Judge O'Sullivan that in the documentation submitted by Ms Watson's experts they had either misunderstood the situation or the particular expert concerned did not have a cross expertise.
Ms Macken said the Carlow trial was part of a Europeanwide series of trials and the period for planting was critical. Her clients could plant only up to next Tuesday. If they planted later than that the actual data from the trials would be open to attack in regard to proper assembly of data.