ICTU delegates have called for mass protests by unions over the state of the health service. They are also demanding an extra 3,500 hospital beds and 1,500 extra consultants to cut waiting lists.
"It's time we hit the streets," a SIPTU delegate, Mr Paddy Behan, said to loud applause. "I'm all in favour of new technology, but the best lap-top the trade union movement has is its own two feet. We need to get them on the street because, if we don't, it's not going to happen."
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, admitted there were serious problems and said that the creation of a new health strategy was "one of the Government's top priorities". However, he also said that the new health strategy document would not be available until September. It had originally been promised for this month.
"There is now universal agreement that the problems in our health service do not arise from lack of resources alone, but we have got to find the key to structuring the service in a manner which is efficient and which also gives the State value for its investment," he said. To underline the point, per capita spending had risen by 80 per cent in 1990-98 and by another 55 per cent in 1999-2001.
Earlier, delegate after delegate had risen to condemn a system which, according to the Civil and Public Service Union president, Mr Denis Keane, was "going down the tube". IMPACT's national secretary, Mr Kevin Callinan, said the ICTU should set up a working party to campaign for a better health service, and its first job should be to make the forthcoming general election a health election.
They had the resources to ask every candidate: "Do you support a quality public health service with equality at the point of access? Secondly, what practical actions will you take or support to achieve this goal if you are elected?"
The Irish Medical Organisation's industrial relations executive, Mr Fintan Hourihan, said: "As recently as 10 years ago, when our economy was in dire straits, 38 per cent of the population was entitled to medical cards. Today the figure is 31 per cent."
There were now 150,000 fewer people on medical cards, although the population had increased by 250,000. Dublin was one of the unhealthiest capitals in Europe, but less than 25 per cent of the population had medical cards because eligibility levels had not kept pace with changing economic conditions.
SIPTU's health branch president, Mr Jack Kelly, said putting extra beds into the system was not enough without the extra staff.
In one major hospital recently, "a very distressed young nurse had to watch over a dying motorbike accident victim, not to offer compassion, but to make sure his bed went to an ill man with a broken hip who had spent two days on a trolley. Barbaric situations like this, which traumatise both patients and staff, are being repeated over and over again on a daily basis".
The spectre of "gang masters" scouring Europe to bring in low paid building workers was raised by the SIPTU construction branch secretary, Mr Eric Fleming, directly with Mr Ahern, who asked him for a submission and said foreign workers had to be employed "on the right conditions".