SIPTU president-designate Mr Des Geraghty probably expressed himself more forcefully than he had intended when he warned public service unions of the dangers of the single-minded pursuit of pay relativities. Nevertheless, the loud applause from ICTU delegates suggested that he was only giving voice to what many private sector workers are thinking.
As a trade union leader with 80,000 members in the public sector and 120,000 in the private sector, he cannot be accused of simply playing to his own constituency. He was just showing how concerned SIPTU has become that spiralling public pay demands can cook the economy's golden goose - even if saying it may offend some of his own members.
He was effectively appealing to ICTU members to adopt the sort of broad vision being promoted from the rostrum by ICTU president Ms Inez McCormick, its general secretary, Mr Peter Cassells and indeed the ICTU vice-president, Mr Joe O'Toole, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation.
Mr O'Toole made no apologies for seeking a pay review in the wake of the nurses' strike, but he also pointed out that trade union leaders in most other European countries would "give their eye teeth" for the chance to shape their state's development in partnership talks.
Besides the secondary teachers' union, ASTI, which had previously supported national agreements, the main opponents were the ATGWU and MANDATE. ATGWU leader Mr Mick O'Reilly has traditionally opposed agreements because he believes they disempower workers on the shop floor and impose wage restraint.
MANDATE is more pragmatic. Its general secretary, Mr Owen Nulty, said members in the retail trade had secured only 32 per cent of an increase since national agreements began in 1987, while the average industrial wage rose by 56 per cent. He wanted the right to negotiate a better deal.
Mr Cassells said the decision was about more than pay. It was about trying to develop a fairer society purged of "institutional corruption, the gold-collar fraud, the money politics, the abuse of power, the political croneyism and the massive tax fraud".