President Michael D Higgins has criticised the role of multinational companies in the global economy.
He made the remarks during a keynote address to students at the University of Washington in Seattle.
President Higgins is in the middle of an eight-day trip to the states of Washington and California.
He said unelected companies had a "stealth of power" and while elected officials "take the abuse", the multinationals just carried on.
Mr Higgins said elected governments now faced a fundamental challenge that they were responsible for an ever decreasing portion of the global economic space.
He continued that "superflous consumption" in the richest and expanding economies was "exacerbating the disadvantages of the poor".
He said there was a moral obligation for "technology justice", access to technology to be available to all people.
President Higgins criticises the "stealth"& unelected power of multinational corporations at @UW speech @rtenews pic.twitter.com/t9bn3GywXC
— Caitriona Perry (@CaitrionaPerry) October 23, 2015
The President said that developed countries had a "head start" in technological innovation and should work towards equalising opportunity in the developing nations.
He added that he "very much welcomed" the significant increase in investment in science in Ireland, saying that science had played a central role in Ireland's economic recovery.
In a long and wide-ranging speech, the President continued his critique of the globalised economy, pointing out that the developed world continued to put servicing debt ahead of important issues such as combating hunger or improving healthcare.
He said that he hoped the UN climate meeting in Paris in December would deliver a comprehensive climate change agreement.
He said this gathering of nations had been described as the "last chance of a reversal of climate change" before "irreversible damage" to the planet took place.
Earlier, President Higgins appealed to Irish immigrants in the US to stay in touch with Ireland.
He was speaking to groups of Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans in Seattle as part of an eight-day trip to the states of Washington and California.
Praising the important role that technology now plays in the lives of the diaspora, he said Irish people were now able to stay in touch after they leave, saying there was no longer a "bád na n-inimirceach" version of immigration.
He said that it was his "wish and hope" that the Irish people who have left to work in the US do stay in touch.
No matter where they did it, he said, he hoped the Irish people he was meeting would be able to "create the countries" and "build the republics" they wanted to.
