Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, campaigner for social justice, said yesterday the `Celtic Tiger' image of Ireland's economy was "grossly unjust".
Speaking in Knock, Co Mayo, to almost to 1,500 members of the Society of St Vincent de Paul celebrating the beatification of the organisation's founder, Frederic Ozanam, she said that "our dominant understanding of Irish society as a vibrant, economically successful, young European nation is an insult to the poor on whose backs this prosperity has developed". There were always poor people eking out a living but now we had a large pool of people who were "not wanted in our society, who are surplus to society's requirements and they know that".