ICTU opposition: The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) has expressed its opposition to the visit of Mr Bush, and said he had done "untold damage" to both the US people and the world.
The ICTU said it opposed the war in Iraq on legal, strategic and humanitarian grounds, and described Mr Bush as "a menace to world peace".
"We cannot accord to him the welcome that would normally be due to the leader of a country with which we have a close affinity," said Mr David Begg, general secretary of the ICTU.
"He has started something he cannot control, and in the process has divided the West and undermined the United Nations. The man is a menace."
Noting the strong economic and historic links between Ireland and the US, he said Ireland's thriving economy, foreign direct investment and exports were in no small way connected to our relationship with the US, but Mr Bush had "severely damaged" the reputation of the US.
"America and Europe as a whole should be co-operating for the betterment of the world. Now, however, American's reputation for benevolence and irresistible power has been severely damaged.
"Mr Bush, in discrediting his own neo-conservative strategy; has unwittingly destroyed any possibility of his country leading multilateralism on a large scale for the foreseeable future.
"What population will want US soldiers in their country - even as members of a UN force? And how many US allies will risk being tainted by association with US soldiers? It will take a generation or more to rehabilitate America's image. The reality too is that the fight against international terrorism is being lost."
The ICTU said the war in Iraq was waged without UN approval, and on the basis of a lie in relation to weapons of mass destruction.
It noted that the US had come to the aid of freedom in Europe twice in the last century.
"This was most poignantly recalled in recent weeks in the parade, probably for the last time, of the veterans of Normandy.
"How sad that America the liberator has been replaced by the image of America the torturer. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents in light of accumulating evidence that the Bush administration either instituted or permitted tortures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."