It has been a week of unprecedented disruption as hauliers, agricultural contractors and farmers blocked traffic arteries across the State. While the Government has indicated a package of fuel price supports will be available should the blockades end, the situation remains volatile and unpredictable.
The overall official response to the challenge posed by these tactics has not been impressive. Reports suggest the Garda was slow to react to clear evidence over the Easter weekend of organised online preparation for the week’s actions. When the disruption began, gardaí maintained a watching brief without attempting to intervene. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s subsequent announcement that the Defence Forces were being asked to provide support prompted vocal outrage among protesters but was not followed by any perceptible change of tactics.
This apparent lack of resolve may in fact have emboldened the protesters, whose demands grew more extreme as the week progressed. Whereas on Tuesday their condition for standing down was simply a meeting with the Government, by Friday it had escalated in some cases to an emergency Dáil recall, the abolition of carbon tax and the reopening of Irish offshore oilfields. But yielding to the core demands of a price cap on fuel and a suspension of the carbon tax would fatally undermine the Government’s already fragile credibility as a guardian of the public finances.
In fact, it is an open question as to how realistic any negotiated settlement is with a movement that is so amorphous and decentralised. But there are other compelling reasons not to simply accede to its demands. The events of the past week have gone well beyond the boundaries of the constitutionally protected right to protest. The deliberate closure of key national transport routes, the blockading of ports and refineries and the flagrant disregard for the distress caused to tens of thousands of people are an affront to democratic principles.
READ MORE
While most participants appear motivated by genuine anxiety about their livelihoods, concerns that deserve to be heard through legitimate channels, there are clearly more sinister actors seeking to exploit the situation. A strain of extremism, xenophobia and climate denialism has attached itself to this movement which its leaders have so far failed to convincingly repudiate.
Comparisons with France’s gilets jaunes have some merit but prolonged disruption of that kind still seems unlikely here. The end of the Easter holidays will heighten public impatience. The blockades, if they continue, will quickly move from being an irritant to a source of real anger. The protesters, no less than the Government, should be wary of provoking a backlash that could rapidly erode the public sympathy on which any successful movement ultimately depends.
