More than a billion people in the developing world are living on less than "is provided to the average cow in the European Union", according to Fine Gael.
Mr Gerard Murphy, the party's deputy trade spokesman, said that the EU should be "mortified", "angered" and "moved to action" in the forthcoming World Trade Organisation talks by the fact that 1.2 billion people were living daily on less than the price of a newspaper.
The party's enterprise spokesman, Mr Phil Hogan, said the talks provided Ireland with an opportunity to "make its name in the EU if it has the political will to do so". He warned that Europe "has to stand up for itself against the US and other countries", and Ireland could lead with "moral authority".
He expressed concern, however, that the stance of "those Ministers who look to Boston rather than Berlin and are not enthusiastic Europeans, will damage Ireland's prospects of having" such influence. He added that the penalties for breaking rules within the WTO "are a joke".
Countries such as the US "dump food in developing countries ad nauseam".
"A blind eye is turned to a reasonable suggestion from the French that there should be a tax on the arms industry. This is repudiated immediately by the US."
During a debate on the talks in Mexico in September, Mr Murphy said Fine Gael believed the African Union should be granted observer status at the WTO talks.
"There is real concern that the poorest countries in the world have been unable to represent themselves to their full potential." Trócaire "has specifically expressed its worry about the lack of transparency and inclusiveness in the negotiating process".
However, the Minister of State for Enterprise, Mr Michael Ahern, who introduced the debate, insisted that "central to our approach and that of the EU is a commitment to respond positively in the negotiations to the concerns and ambitions of the developing world".
Businesses "benefit through the development of new markets and new sources of supply" and this had been a key factor in Ireland's economic transformation.
Labour's Foreign Affairs spokesman, Mr Michael D. Higgins, asked "is poverty reduction the main aim?" Would the Minister starting the talks in Cancun be speaking "about how compassionate Ireland, which is moved to tears so regularly about famine and destruction, has now decided to put that agenda ahead of everything else?"
Sinn Féin's Agriculture spokesman, Mr Martin Ferris, said there were too many double standards. "It is okay for the EU and US to heavily subsidise their farmers but not for the very poorest and most vulnerable states. This can assume obscene proportions. For example, less than 30,000 US cotton farmers receive more in annual subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkino Faso."
The Green Party trade spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan, said the Government "has fully bought into the Washington consensus which espouses economic growth and market liberalisation as the sole path to progress.
"They seem blind to the need for global employment and environmental rules to match WTO rules which would help make international trade fair as well as free."
