Irish road hauliers to concentrate protests on five cities

Five cities in the Republic are to be targeted by the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) as focal points for its 24-hour protest planned to begin at midnight tonight.

The protest is to involve a continuous slow procession of lorries, beginning in county towns and travelling along national roads to and from the cities of Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Dublin.

While the IRHA insists the protest is not a blockade, it is likely to cause major traffic disruption, and could virtually shut down the State's major ports.

The planned protest has been criticised by business and trade union leaders, who say the costs of the action will be "massive and far reaching" with markets for Irish goods being lost as a result of the delays.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Mr Gerry McMahon, president of the IRHA, rejected the use of the word "blockade", insisting that the hauliers would be engaged in a dignified, peaceful withdrawal of their services and mounting a slow-moving protest. He said the IRHA had put special arrangements in place for the emergency services and essential services to get past the protests.

Mr McMahon believed there would be a constant 24-stream of lorries heading to the cities and returning home. He maintained that Irish hauliers were being more patient than their European counterparts in that they were seeking talks with the government before they took disruptive action. In other countries, he said, the hauliers had protested first and only called off their protest when concessions had been promised by their governments.

In contrast, he said, the IRHA had sought talks with the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, but the Minister had no proposals to put to the members other than an offer to begin considering the problem in the light of the December budget. A series of regional meetings had been held and he was satisfied that the membership of the association was fully supportive of the action. "We are confident that enough lorries will turn out to have hauliers proceeding to the cities and going slowly home again. The determination and the numbers are there to maintain the protest all day."

The Garda Press Office confirmed yesterday that the IRHA had been in contact with the Garda traffic department about the protest.

The protest is scheduled to last for 24 hours, ending on Friday at midnight. On Saturday, at 11 a.m., the council of the IRHA will meet at the Green Isle Hotel in Clondalkin, west Dublin, to decide on any further protest.

The protests have, however, met with criticism from the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC), the Small Firms Association (SFA), and the main unions.

A spokesman for the SFA, Mr Pat Delaney, said the disruption would be "massive". As the "last island in Europe" and a State which exported 85 per cent of its output, the Republic stood to lose markets which would be very hard to recover.

"It is not just about delays. If we lose shelf space we may not get it back again," he warned.

A spokesman for IBEC agreed that there could be "widespread and long-term losses" as a result of the protest.

For SIPTU Mr Des Geraghty said a case for a reduction in the cost of oil had already been made to the government by the unions. While Mr Geraghty said the unions were in broad support of the hauliers because of their predicament, he would prefer if they did not take their protest to the roads.

"We don't think it is helpful to disrupt a lot of other people getting to work. All too often it is the workers who suffer in this kind of protest and we wouldn't be enthusiastic about anything that makes conditions worse for workers."

Meanwhile representatives of the fishing industry met the Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, yesterday to discuss the rising cost of diesel in relation to the fishing industry.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr Bruton, said yesterday that road hauliers had a case in asking for a reduction in excise duty, but they must withdraw their threats first.

"We need debate and discussion on an urgent basis but in the absence of threats," he said, speaking at the end of the two-day Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in Athlone. "We do see that the hauliers have a case in the sense that by the way their taxes are calculated, the more the price of oil goes up the more government takes. It is not calculated as a fixed sum on a litre or a gallon. They are being hit twice - by OPEC and the high government take. There is room for examination of that."