FUEL protests entered their fourth day across Ireland yesterday, with blockades at the country’s only oil refinery and major ports forcing Taoiseach Micheál Martin to postpone a trade mission to Canada.
The crisis, triggered by fuel prices that have risen as much as 50 per cent since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran, has seen farmers, hauliers, agricultural contractors and construction workers mount blockades at the Whitegate oil refinery in east Cork, fuel terminals in Foynes, Co Limerick, and at Galway Port.
No tankers have been permitted to enter or leave any of the three sites.
With Whitegate supplying roughly 40 per cent of Ireland’s petroleum and the other depots handling much of the remainder, approximately half the country’s fuel supply is now locked behind protest lines.
Over 60 gardaí, including public order units, were stationed at Whitegate yesterday morning, where protesters had reversed additional large vehicles up the approach road to the Irving Oil refinery.
Officers spoke with a delegation for around an hour; talks were described as ongoing but unlikely to yield a quick resolution. Workers’ cars are being waved through. Tankers are not.
Industry body Fuels for Ireland said more than a hundred garage forecourts in Munster and the west had already run dry, and warned the figure could be five times higher by nightfall.
In Galway, a tanker carrying six million litres of agricultural diesel, white diesel and kerosene was due to dock yesterday morning but would be unable to offload because depot tanks are full. ‘There is no oil coming into or out of Galway,’ one protester said.
The protests are a grassroots movement, organised through WhatsApp groups and social media rather than by established bodies such as the Irish Farmers’ Association or the Irish Road Haulage Association, both of which have stayed away.
Protesters are demanding the abolition of carbon tax and a cap on the price of white diesel, kerosene and petrol.
The government’s 250 million euro support package, announced last month and comprising excise cuts of 15 cents per litre on petrol and 20 cents on diesel, has been dismissed by demonstrators as wholly inadequate.
Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan accused protesters of being ‘manipulated’ by ‘outside actors’, citing British far-right activist Tommy Robinson’s endorsement of the demonstrations.
Deputy Garda Commissioner Shawna Coxon warned that gardaí were moving to ‘an enforcement phase’ and the Defence Forces have been placed on standby.
One of those blockading Whitegate was local builder Joe Rynne, who employs seven people. ‘I burned 108 euros worth of diesel in two hours and that was only doing light work,’ he said.
‘That’s not sustainable and I’m here today because it’s not going to pay me to go back to doing what I was doing yesterday.’
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