{"id":465721,"date":"2026-05-03T00:13:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/465721\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T00:13:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:13:09","slug":"further-fuel-protests-expected-before-the-autumn-budget-spokesmen-say-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/465721\/","title":{"rendered":"Further fuel protests expected before the autumn Budget, spokesmen say \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Further demonstrations will take place before the budget but nothing is yet organised, spokesmen for the fuel protests<\/a> say.<\/p>\n

James Geoghegan, a contractor from Co Westmeath<\/a>, and John Dallon, a farmer and agricultural contractor from Co Kildare<\/a>, were the main spokespeople for fuel protests that blocked off O\u2019Connell Street, Dublin<\/a>, for days last month.<\/p>\n

Both men, while raising criticisms of the government\u2019s fuel subsidy scheme announced during the week, also referred to wider cost-of-living<\/a> concerns for workers. <\/p>\n

Geoghegan and Dallon were among the speakers at a Breaking Point event in Dublin city on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Breaking Point describes itself as a forum where \u201cestablished ideas meet new ones\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"JohnJohn Dallon, an agricultural contractor from Co Kildare, arriving for a Breaking Point event in Dublin. Photograph: Conor \u00d3 Mear\u00e1in\/PA <\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of the event, Geoghegan said \u201cthere will be action before\u201d the Budget<\/a> on October 6 and referred to the government supports expiring in July.<\/p>\n

He said the government\u2019s fuel support package was \u201ctoo late coming\u201d as there will be no actual payments until late June or early July, after a fuel-heavy period for farming.<\/p>\n

He said, in the meantime, the price of oil was still increasing, so the package was \u201ca drop in the ocean\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also criticised the ESB and suggested oil imports from Russia<\/a>, the United States<\/a> and the North Sea should be increased if there is a shortage of oil in the coming months due to the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

\"GardaíGarda\u00ed escort the last fuel protesters from Dublin’s O\u2019Connell street last month. Photograph: Alan Betson <\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be action before that, for a start this scheme that\u2019s in is bringing fuel down and it\u2019s helping until July,\u201d he told the Press Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve a very busy autumn this year, and if that\u2019s not included in the deal\u201d he said it could be \u201cthe straw that break their back\u201d for the grain industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see no fairness and that\u2019s what\u2019s really really annoying people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dallon said: \u201cThe voices I\u2019m hearing from people, they\u2019re still not happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He mentioned cuts needed to the Universal Social Charge<\/a> (USC) tax, the struggles of people with disabilities, the pressure nurses are under, and the 17,000 people who are homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this protest should have enough of an impact on government that they should listen because these protests are not going away from what I\u2019m hearing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve nothing organised, or I have nothing organised, but the voice of the people of the island of Ireland, they\u2019re looking for another protest because there\u2019s not enough done for the people of the working sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

When put to him that he was speaking like a politician, he said the thought \u201cnever entered my head\u201d.<\/p>\n

The fuel protests began on April 7 as hauliers and agricultural contractors organised slow-moving convoys in cities, on motorways and restricting access to Dublin\u2019s busiest streets.<\/p>\n

They continued in the days after that and escalating to blockades of fuel depots that supply half the country and Ireland\u2019s only oil refinery in Whitegate, Co Cork<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This prompted some panic buying at forecourts, hundreds of which ran dry, and for the Whitegate refinery to consider redirecting its product to international markets or carrying out a \u201ccontrolled shutdown\u201d of its operations. <\/p>\n

The Government threatened to send in the army to remove heavy machinery blocking critical infrastructure; the blockades were lifted in Dublin in a late-night policing operation almost a week after they began.<\/p>\n

The public order unit was sent to Whitegate and blockades were eventually lifted elsewhere.<\/p>\n

The fuel protests prompted Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> to table a motion of no confidence in the government; junior minister Michael Healy-Rae<\/a> announced his resignation<\/a> during that D\u00e1il debate, which the coalition government went on to win.<\/p>\n

Also speaking at the event in Dublin on Saturday were the editor of conservative news website Gript, John McGuirk, and Christopher Duffy, who is another spokesman for the fuel protests.<\/p>\n

McGuirk said the protests would \u201cclearly will have an impact\u201d on the forthcoming by-elections, and referred to the Sunday Independent opinion poll that put Independent Ireland<\/a> on 9 per cent and Aont\u00fa<\/a> on 6 per cent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that is the case [if those parties are on the right of politics], then that is the highest support for the right of the Irish political spectrum in an organised way since the Progressive Democrats were founded in 1985,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked about an Irish Times report that he had been placed on leave of absence<\/a>, McGuirk said his title remained as editor of Gript and he declined to comment.<\/p>\n

The Press Association was told the event was \u201cat capacity\u201d, with around 30-40 people in attendance, so it could not be admitted to the event. \u2013 Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Further demonstrations will take place before the budget but nothing is yet organised, spokesmen for the fuel protests…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[49,9,10,10471,1877,2190,52,18,13,14,189695,6,19,7062,17,11,12,15,16,5283,5,550,47,7,8,384,14084,19871],"class_list":["post-465721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-aontu","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-budget","tag-cork","tag-cost-of-living","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fuel-protests","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-independent-ireland","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-michael-healy-rae","tag-news","tag-russia","tag-sinn-fein","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-usc","tag-westmeath"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116507758283711912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465721","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=465721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}