References to Ireland having "third world" health and public services are an "insult" to those who work in them, the president of the State's biggest public sector union said last night.
Impact president Stephen Lyons said public servants and their trade unions were under sustained attack from vested interests who wanted to cut back, privatise and profit from public services.
This had damaged the morale of public servants, most of whom worked hard every day to provide the best possible service to the public, he told delegates to the opening session of the union's biennial conference in Killarney, Co Kerry.
Mr Lyons said public servants could be proud of their role in providing services to the Irish nation and its citizens. "Of course the services are not perfect. Of course we always need to improve and see how things can be done better. We would expect no less for ourselves and our families, who also pay their taxes and depend on public services.
"But we won't accept the mantra of 'private good, public bad'. And we should not be cowed into accepting that the services we provide are, by definition, substandard," he said.
Mr Lyons, an employee of Eircom, said he was "sick of hearing that we have 'third world' health and public services". This was an insult to people who were working hard to deliver services in difficult circumstances.
"It is even more of an insult to those in the developing world who have to deal with problems on a scale unimaginable to us, as I recently saw with my own eyes in the case of the Ugandan Aids project that this union is supporting." He said the biggest challenge facing the trade union movement was the need to organise more people into unions. While union membership overall was increasing, it was not keeping pace with the growth in the workforce.
"At a time when unions are frequently under attack in the public debate, we must work harder to convince workers, young and old, of the benefits of union membership. Let's not be shy about what we have achieved," he said.
"The basic rights and protections that we enjoy - minimum wage, health and safety protection, maternity provision - are there because unions fought for them. And we continue the fight to protect and improve them." About 600 delegates and guests are attending the conference, which continues until tomorrow afternoon.
Impact general secretary Peter McLoone, who is also current president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, will address delegates this morning on the prospects of a successful outcome to the national partnership talks.
Issues to be debated today include pay and benchmarking, decentralisation, housing and employment standards. A motion from the union's marine branch calls on the Government to abandon its "ad-hoc decentralisation plans". It also calls on the union's executive to ensure the Government provides the taxpayer with a cost-benefit analysis of the decentralisation programme.
