The claims, made by South African-born Sheikh Dr Shaheed Satardien, were rejected by other Muslim leaders here, including Dr Nooh Al Kaddo, the director of the Islamic cultural centre of Ireland.

However, last week, Khalid Kelly, an Irish Muslim who was a leading member of the UKbased fundamentalist Islamic group Al Muhajiroun told the Sunday Tribune that there was "remarkable interest" shown by young Irish Muslims when the group conducted an information campaign in Dublin. Al Muhajiroun was banned in the UK in 2004. Its founder and leader, the controversial Muslim cleric Sheihk Omar Bakri, is currently in hiding in Lebanon, but remains in contact via emails with his followers, including Kelly.

Kelly told the Sunday Tribune that Irish Muslim teenagers, including some as young as 12, expressed an interest in the group's pro-jihadist teachings when they initially travelled to Ireland in October 2003. Both Kelly and other members of the London-based group have returned several times to Dublin to meet with persons interested in the group's activities, he said.

Satardien claimed that there was a failure among many Irish Muslim leaders to halt the progress towards radicalism among young Islamics here. The respected moderate cleric, who earlier this year organised the peaceful demonstrations in Dublin against the circulation of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, warned of the dangers of many young Irish Muslims spending large amounts of time in their parents' native homeland, including Pakistan.

Satardien's concerns have been dismissed by the Pakistani Ambassador to Ireland, Toheed Amhad, as "nonsensical and fanciful". Speaking to the Sunday Tribune, Amhad said that young Muslims living in Ireland had travelled back to Pakistan but purely for family purposes. There was no evidence that anyone had travelled to Pakistan from this country for terrorist purposes, he said.

Amhad says that madrassas, the religious schools often blamed by the US and UK for the spread of terrorist ideology, are "hugely misunderstood". Claims that British would-be bombers had been "brainwashed" in such schools could not be accurate, according to Amhad. Not only do the schools not teach radicalism, it is not possible to enrol for less than a few years at a time.

"They are not schools of terrorism, " he said. "They are welfare schools where free education is given to over half-a-million students. It is certainly not the case that people are given arms training or being taught how to blow up airplanes."

Various representatives of the Islamic community in Ireland have also rejected Satardien's claims. At an emergency meeting two days after the Sunday Tribune published the cleric's views, 15 representatives of Muslim organisations met at the Islamic Cultural Centre in Clonskeagh to discuss the comments.

A joint statement released after the meeting said that Satardien's views were not reflective of the wider Islamic community.

"This publicity stunt was an avenue open to him to gain recognition, and as a result has offended the Irish Muslim youth and the Irish community at large, " read the statement.

One issue highlighted by the dispute is the fractured nature of the Islamic community in Ireland. Aside from Satardien's organisation . . . the Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland . . . there are several other organisations claiming to represent the Islamic community in Ireland.

The Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland, of which Satardien is the chief religious leader, is a widely respected group and has made several representations to the government on behalf of the Islamic community.

While Muslim leaders voiced their concern about the effects Satardien's claims would have on Muslims living in Ireland, the Pakistani ambassador expressed his concern over ongoing associations between Pakistan and terrorism.

Amhad said that it is a mistake to believe that radicalism is rife in Ireland just because of the problems experienced in the UK.

"Even if they [radical clerics] did come to Ireland, they would not have an audience, " he claimed. "They would be preaching to a prosperous community who are happy to live in Ireland.

The situation in the UK is entirely different to the situation in Ireland. In the UK, there is third and fourth generation Pakistanis and many of them live in marginalised communities. That is not the case in Ireland."

While migrant communities in some parts of the UK have experienced ghettoisation and marginalisation, new communities in Ireland have not yet experienced this. Ahmad also claims that Muslims living in Ireland appreciate that feeling in Ireland towards issues such as the Iraq war and the Lebanon conflict are very different to those expressed in the UK.

"I went to the foreign affairs committee meeting when they were discussing the situation in the Lebanon and for a minute I thought I was in the Pakistani parliament . . . the points they were making were the same, " he says. "The Irish government has made its position clear regarding Lebanon. They condemned the loss of life and the destruction of property and called for a ceasefire very early on. When they were calling for a ceasefire, the UK government was saying that it was too early for a ceasefire. Pakistani people in Ireland appreciate that the stances of the two countries are very different."

Far from being radicalised in Pakistan, Ahmad claims that English-born militants are radicalised while living in the UK.

Two months living in Pakistan cannot change a person and undo all the influence of their life in the UK, he said.

"People do not do these things because of religion, " he says. "Anybody who tries to blow up a plane suffers from a sick mind. It is psychopathic to want to do these things."