In the face of economically crippling anti-fuel tax demonstrations across Ireland, the neo-liberal government in Dublin announced a last-minute emergency support package on Sunday evening in an apparent bid to pay off key sectors of the protest movement.
With Ireland’s fuel stations running out of petrol and diesel throughout the country as a result of farmer and trucker-led protests, which have blockaded the nation’s only refinery, and its depots over the past week, Prime Minister Micheál Martin announced on Sunday a €505 million ($590) emergency fund to mitigate against energy spikes amid the Iran conflict, the Irish Independent reported.
This comes on top of a €250 million package released last month, and a €1.2 billion cost-of-living package after the initial energy crisis was sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“We recognise and understand the pressures that have arisen due to rising fuel costs on all families and businesses. I am very conscious that we must support people, protect key services and make critical investments. This package is a significant response to real pressures,” Martin said.
In addition to the financial subsidies, the government also announced Sunday that it would delay increases to the carbon tax, scheduled for next month, to October.
The unpopular tax was set to particularly impact Irish farmers through hikes on agri-diesel despite the reality that there are currently no viable electric alternatives for the heavy machinery needed to produce the nation’s food supply.
The latest support package includes a specific scheme to help struggling truckers, with a mechanism put in place to lower fuel costs for licensed hauliers should the price of diesel rise above €1.90-a-litre in April or May.
However, critics noted that little was done to lower the cost of fuel or home heating oil for the average citizen and accused the government of attempting to buy off the truckers, who had outsized power within the protest movement due to their ability to shut down roads.
Prominent Irish entrepreneur and former leader of the former populist Libertas Party, Declan Ganley, described the government’s move as a “predictable attempt to divide and rule.”
“This government loves ‘package’, a way to try to buy off and control some special interest group or another, divide the resistance,” he said.
Former MMA champion Conor McGregor lent his weight behind the call to keep the protest movement alive, saying: “To every farmer, haulier, trucker, builder, shopkeeper, factory worker, and every hardworking Irish man and woman, JOIN US. Shut it down. They will feel the pain they have inflicted on us.”
Meanwhile, the left-wing Sinn Féin party said it will stick to its plans to introduce a vote of no confidence against the government when the parliament returns to session.
Following the support package announcement, Sinn Féin MP Pearse Doherty said that the government was not listening to the public and had failed to take the “necessary action to make fuel affordable at the pumps.”
“What they announced this evening fell far short. Working people left behind again. The solutions are there. They could have cut diesel by the maximum amount to prevent it being wiped out within days. They could have cut petrol further. They could have scrapped excise on home heating oil,” Doherty said.
“They only moved because of public pressure – and even then, they fell short. The pressure must now intensify. We will bring forward our motion of no confidence in the government this week. They have to go,” he added.
Public sentiment appears to be with the protesters, with a poll finding that 56 per cent back the movement, and that 46 per cent say the government is primarily to blame for the crisis.
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