First trickle of stranded Irish arrive home from Gulf states as war continues to spread

Late last night the first flight carrying passengers who have been stranded in the Gulf states for the past five days landed in Dublin Aiport. Emirates flight EK163 touched down just before 11pm with 368 passengers.

However, most were transiting through Ireland. If airports in the region reopen it is clear it could take up a week to repatriate the estimated 2,000 Irish people caught up in the war.

Still, the scenes of happiness of people arriving home provided a sliver of light in a dark week globally. A woman living in Dublin was greeted by her mother, who had come all the way from Donegal to welcome home her daughter.

Another Emirates flight is due in Dublin tomorrow morning while the Government’s first charter flight from Oman (which will involve an eight-hour bus transfer across Oman’s border with the United Arab Emirates) is also expected tomorrow. Doha airport in Qatar, however, remains closed.

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But the impact of the war has cast a negative pall over Irish politics, with tense exchanges over its impact both politically and economically. Government leaders continue to come under attack for what the Opposition consider its tepid reactions to the military aggression of the US and Israel, and the absence of an international mandate to carry out what is arguably an unprovoked attack.

Meanwhile the war on Iran spread when an Iranian frigate was destroyed in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka, hit by a torpedo fired by a US submarine. An estimated 85 lives were lost.

Accusations of war profiteering in Ireland

More than 50 per cent of the world’s oil is reportedly channelled through the Straits of Hormuz, the narrow body of water shared by Iran and most of the Gulf states. The Straits have been effectively blockaded by Iran since last weekend, bringing the export of oil from there to a standstill.

The downstream implication is an inevitable hike in fuel prices. Yesterday Micheál Martin said it would normally take two to three weeks for price increases to filter down from such incidents.

But instances of price gouging appear to be occurring already in Ireland before the wholesale prices increase.

As we report, the price of home heating oil has continued to climb nationwide with the average price for 500 litres put at €761 on Wednesday, an increase of more than 50 per cent in less than a week.

Conor Pope and Martin Wall report that Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke has asked the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to urgently investigate claims of price gouging and he has also called in leaders from the fuel sector for a meeting tomorrow.

In a statement, the CCPC did not raise much hope of any immediate intervention, saying in a statement there was no legal obligation on companies to set their prices at a level that consumers will consider fair.

“Consumers can and should take their business elsewhere where they are treated poorly.”

For the Opposition politicians, there is no chance of this happening, as they claimed price increases were widespread.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald accused the Government of passivity while a “brazen rip-off” was happening in plain sight.

Labour leader Ivana Bacik said the Government could use existing powers under the Consumer Protection Act to “cap the price of home heating oil”.

In the face of rising energy prices, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers told the Dáil that once-off payments to householders to alleviate the hardship of rising energy costs was not under consideration at present.

Recommender algorithms

People Before Profit brought a Private Members’ Bill to the Dáil yesterday that would force social media companies to turn off recommender algorithms for under 18s.

These are pieces of software that profile the user, their social background, sex and age, and also their data use and then channel them towards sites based on that information. Recommender algorithms have been pinpointed by critics as leading young people very quickly to toxic and extreme content.

Paul Murphy said a ban on social media recommender algorithms for under-18s was removed from Ireland’s online safety code “because big tech lobbied” to keep it.

The approach differs from that of the Government, which has suggested a social media ban for under 16s. Murphy is opposed to such a ban or any age-verification requirements for those over 16. He argued young people could work around such bans but if the recommenders were turned off, young people would not be exposed to harmful content.

He has said the age-verification process (18 and over) for his Bill would be different and completely anonymised. However, the Government has claimed its under-16 verification would also be anonymised.

Fianna Fáil’s youngest TD, Albert Dolan of Galway East, said it was time for Ireland to “step up” and ban social media for under 16s. Minister for Culture and Media Patrick O’Donovan has suggested he will take such an approach but a pilot scheme will be introduced first.

Scramblers

Ellen Coyne has written a timely report saying that “competing commitments” delayed the introduction of bans on scrambler bikes, and powers to seize them, after laws to that effect were introduced in 2023.

Minutes of a November 2023 meeting noted the scrambler regulations “have been slightly delayed due to competing commitments”.

Correspondence between the department and Garda in February 2025 showed that “competing work commitments” were again blamed for the “slow” progress of the scrambler regulations.

The death of Grace Lynch, who was struck by a scrambler in Finglas in January, led to calls for immediate implementation of the laws.

Best Reads

Miriam Lord writes about the price gouging debate in the Dáil, saying “when the dogs of war are unleashed, the commodity market rats escape with them”.

Finn McRedmond has an interesting opinion piece on free speech, exploring the views of some prominent American politicians and writers of the right that Europe stifles dissent and also exploring why extreme right-wing activist Tommy Robinson is celebrated by Maga as a “free-speech warrior”.

Playbook

Dáil

8.47am: Parliamentary Questions to Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll McNeill

10.24am: Parliamentary Questions to Minister for Housing James Browne

12pm: Leaders’ Questions taken by Tánaiste Simon Harris

1.12pm: Bills for Introduction: Irish Language Name and Address of the Person (Length Accent) Bill 13.57: Statements on the situation in the Middle East

5.29pm: Topical Issues

6.29pm: Private Members’ Bill Criminal Justice (Rehabilitative Periods) Bill 2018 – Second stage

8.29pm: Dáil adjourns