{"id":431370,"date":"2026-04-12T01:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T01:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/431370\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T01:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T01:25:10","slug":"irish-police-push-back-fuel-price-protesters-blocking-countrys-only-oil-refinery-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/431370\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish police push back fuel-price protesters blocking country\u2019s only oil refinery \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government leaders welcomed news of the security operation in Whitegate, two days after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/ireland-deploys-army-to-clear-fuel-price-protesters-blocking-key-ports\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Justice Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan ordered army assistance<\/a> for the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, Ireland\u2019s national police force.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the Whitegate oil refinery isn\u2019t reopened, this country will shut down. It\u2019s a matter of national security,\u201d said Thomas Byrne, Ireland\u2019s junior minister for European affairs and defense.<\/p>\n<p>Fuels for Ireland, which represents distributors and filling stations, said about 600 of Ireland\u2019s 1,500 gas stations nationwide had already run out of supplies.<\/p>\n<p>Protesters continue to block key roads in central Dublin and several motorway junctions nationwide as part of their demand for immediate tax cuts. The epicenter of the protest is O\u2019Connell Street, Dublin\u2019s central thoroughfare, where scores of parked tractors, trucks and vans have snarled public transport in the capital since Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Ireland\u2019s center-right government \u2014 which last month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/politics\/2026\/03\/24\/fuel-retailers-urged-to-ensure-tax-cuts-on-petrol-diesel-are-passed-on-to-motorists-quickly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">cut taxes on petrol and diesel<\/a> in response to oil price hikes spurred by the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran \u2014 has refused to talk directly to the wildcat protesters because they are acting without support from the official representative bodies, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irha.ie\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Irish Road Haulage Association<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ifa.ie\/farm-sectors\/government-failing-to-grasp-the-seriousness-of-fuel-and-fertiliser-crisis-ifa-president\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Irish Farmers\u2019 Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The protesters also are preventing fuel tankers from entering or leaving two of the country\u2019s other key ports for importing oil in Galway and Foynes, in County Limerick. Reflecting that gridlock, a Dutch tanker carrying 6 million liters of fuel has been kept idling in Galway Bay since Thursday because fuel tanks in the port there are already full.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government leaders welcomed news of the security operation in Whitegate, two days after Justice Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan ordered&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":431371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,7520,15912,13,14,17920,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,9951,7,8],"class_list":["post-431370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-energy","tag-energy-crisis","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fuels","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-oil","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116389132711327857","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/431371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}