The Irish documentary filmmaker Phelim McAleer has been taken to task by actor Alec Baldwin over his views on fracking, the controversial oil and gas drilling technique is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks.

According to the Irish Times, Baldwin, an anti-fracking advocate, recently objected to McAleer's presence on a discussion panel at the Hamptons International Film Festival next month to discuss the film Gaslands 2.

Baldwin reportedly sits on on the executive board of the festival and was due to chair the discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of fracking.

The film is a sequel to Gaslands, which has been shown to communities in Ireland where the controversial fracking process might go ahead in the future.

Last week an outraged Baldwin directed a series of jeering tweets at McAleer who has made a film in support of the fracking process entitled FrackNation. The Independent Oil and Gas Association New York put McAleer, a former Sunday Times journalist, forward to speak on their behalf.

But on Twitter Baldwin goaded McAleer as a 'shill for gas companies,' and 'a lumpy old gas whore.' He also called him a 'dreadful filmmaker,' and said his documentary was a 'laughably stilted industry valentine.'

'Come debate me, you tired old bullshitter,' Baldwin concluded.

In response, McAleer reportedly claimed to be puzzled why Baldwin had refused to allow him on a panel to discuss fracking, yet wanted to debate him in another context.

'Put me back on that panel and I’ll answer all those questions,' he said.

Since moving to the United States, McAleer has made a number of films challenging prominent environmentalists, including the film Not Evil Just Wrong, which he made in response to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

McAleer said his documentary FrackNation was made through FundIt and that he accepted no money from oil or gas companies for the broadly supportive documentary.