The Government is to raid the exchequer surplus to pay another half a billion euro in fuel supports after a week of protests and blockades led to severe diesel and petrol shortages.
The €505 million package, announced after a Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, was larger than expected and involves an extension of and increase to excise duty cuts on petrol and diesel.
There will also be a delay to a planned rise in the carbon tax and there will be multimillion euro schemes to support hauliers and agribusinesses.
However, the measures were dismissed by some of the central figures in the recent protests as “insulting” and “not enough”. There were calls on online forums, where the protesters co-ordinated some of their recent actions, for further demonstrations.
READ MORE
Taoiseach Micheál Martin denied the Government’s existing budget plans had gone out the window following Sunday’s announcement, but he confirmed there would be an impact on Budget 2027.
[ Pepper spray, megaphones and jostling: How the Whitegate fuel blockade came to an end ]
The latest package brings the Coalition’s spending on emergency measures to more than €750 million within three weeks.
Blockades at fuel depots in counties Cork, Limerick and Galway were stood down over the weekend, allowing supplies of petrol, diesel and home heating oil to start flowing again.
Fuel industry representatives estimated that availability at service stations left without diesel and petrol supplies since late last week would take about 10 days to return to normal.
Protesters were cleared from O’Connell Street, Dublin, by gardaí early on Sunday and a blockade affecting Rosslare Europort in Co Wexford was stood down. However, rolling protests continued to slow traffic on a number of roads around the country.
Gardaí closed streets around Government Buildings as the Coalition prepared to announce its latest supports.
Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris insisted the measures were solely the outcome of structured engagement with officially recognised interest groups.
But senior figures accepted privately that a week of disruption affected the scale and timing of the intervention.
Excise reductions announced last month are to be extended to July 31st, while there will be a further 10 cent reduction in the rate charged on a litre of petrol and diesel.
The Government is engaging with the European Commission, which is yet to approve another excise cut, on the plan.
Increases to the carbon tax, due to come into force next month, have been postponed until budget day, while there will be a reduction of 2.4 cent on the price of a litre of green diesel.
The Taoiseach said there would be an examination of the “latitude” given to protests and blockades in the early part of last week.
He said the “full rigours of the law” would be applied in future in the event of similar protests that “try to deny the free movement of goods and services”.
Harris said “we saw extraordinarily, extraordinarily frightening scenes in our Republic this week”.
The political and economic consequences of the week have created a new problems for the Coalition, which will have to face down a Sinn Féin no confidence motion in the Dáil this week.
Some in Government fear that reversing out of the excise cuts will be similarly challenging to abandoning the “energy credit” payments given to households when electricity prices surged after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
A senior source conceded that many would see the package as a direct response to the protests.
There was also behind-the-scenes criticism of the pace of the response to the blockades and the decision to publicise Army involvement in it well ahead of time. The process for triggering Army involvement in such situations is to be further reviewed and the subject of a Cabinet memo, it is understood.
“We emboldened the mob, essentially, then nothing happened,” one Minister said.
