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Ballygowan farmer Sam Hanna, with his dog Roy, on Sydenham by-pass in Belfast, as the National Fuel Protest against rising fuel prices continues(Image: Liam McBurney\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n
Ballygowan farmer Sam Hanna was joined by his border collie Roy in the cab of one of the lead tractors in the protest on the Sydenham bypass in Belfast, and he said the protest \u201cisn\u2019t about farmers\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Press Association, he said: \u201cThis is extortionate what we\u2019re getting charged in taxes throughout life, not just fuel, petrol, everything we\u2019re being extorted\/<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cTechnically, it\u2019s not us that\u2019s blocking the hard shoulder. We have kept the hard shoulder open. The cars are underpassing the whole way, the police are sitting watching them underpass. It\u2019s the cars that are blocking the hard shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a couple of emergency vehicles went down there\u2019s a few there coming, and we pulled over straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described the rising price of fuel as the \u201cfinal nail in the coffin\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe south have got 505 million out of it, to the farmers and all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably a few pounds per litre but it\u2019s still money getting back, and it\u2019s only figures on a page for them boys, they\u2019re not living in the real world like us and trying to scrimp and scrape. Nobody has savings nowadays. Any money you get it\u2019s to keep you going and keep things ticking over and just joining the dots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hanna further stated: \u201cThe UK Government have to act and realistically what we\u2019re doing here, they don\u2019t care what we\u2019re doing. They don\u2019t give a damn about us here and that will show in their response to this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ballygowan farmer Sam Hanna, with his dog Roy, on Sydenham by-pass in Belfast, as the National Fuel Protest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[80195,89729,80196,487,249686,18463,15008,1144,252440,285,252439,760,16,15],"class_list":["post-894412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-co-derry","tag-co-fermanagh","tag-co-tyrone","tag-cost-of-living","tag-fuel-protests","tag-george-best-belfast-city-airport","tag-m1","tag-northern-ireland","tag-nutts-corner","tag-politics","tag-sydenham-by-pass","tag-traffic-and-travel","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116405561564918217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}