The Irish government said Tuesday it is concerned that Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko appears to be on the verge of blocking travel to western countries of children affected by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern raised the issue with European Union colleagues on Monday following a speech to parliamentarians by Lukashenko on November 17, the foreign ministry in Dublin said.

Ahern said the president announced he was tightening up regulations on foreign adoptions and "children suffering from the effects of the Chernobyl disaster travelling abroad for medical treatment and recuperation.

"I understand, that from now on, every individual adoption and permission to travel will have to be approved by the Belarus Minister for Education," Ahern was quoted as saying.

"If implemented, these proposed new regulations would add a new and worrying dimension to the isolation of Belarus from the rest of Europe," added Ahern who said he wished to see the matter pursued with the Belarus authorities with a view to encouraging them to modify their position on humanitarian grounds.

About 1,000 Belarus children are due to arrive in Ireland for Christmas breaks organised by the Chernobyl Children's Project (CCP), a charity headed by former Irish presidential candidate Adi Roche.

Roche said the possibility of a ban on children travelling to give their immune systems a break was "very disturbing and alarming news".

"This would be a worldwide restriction," she told RTE state radio.

Roche said she had heard one reason for a possible ban was that Lukashenko felt that children who went abroad were being turned into "little consumers" and he also wanted the charity to hand over cash and resources to him.

She said while all organisations would have a certain amount of money by the nature of its work, CCP mainly deals with services and benefit in kind like donated expertise by doctors, nurses and builders.

She said the consumerism issue was always a risk.

"Our families (who host the children) are always conscious of that -- the children when they see things like TVs, DVDs or modern technology or the benefits of what we might have that they may not have -- but we consistently say that that is a diversionary tactic.

"It gets away from what is being proposed which is about the restriction of medical treatment. It is about the restriction of recuperation for children from the (contaminated) zones which is vitally important for their future lives," Roche said.

CCP, which was set up in 1991 to help children in Belarus, Western Russia and the Ukraine affected by the nuclear fallout, has brought over 10,000 children to Ireland on recuperative holidays.

It has 7,000 volunteers and 73 outreach groups throughout the country.

Special convoys of lorries from Ireland have brought more than 30 million euros in aid to the Chernobyl region.

CCP's patron is Ali Hewson, wife of U2's lead singer Bono.

The accident at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine on April 26, 1986 was the world's worst nuclear power disaster.