The Dáil is back this week – after a restful couple of weeks off.
One of those rare events occured yesterday – a Sunday sitting of the Cabinet. While gardaí dismantled barricades and carried away fuel protesters, Ministers were signing off on a new package of measures worth over half a billion euro.
On top of the first €250 million package of supports amid spiralling energy costs - the Government is selling the new measures as the most generous per capita in the European Union.
The latest package includes a further 10 cent cut in excise on diesel and petrol, along with a delay in the carbon tax increase. An additional 2.4 cent has been lopped off the price of a litre of green diesel. Whether that keeps the roads and ports open is anyone’s guess.
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As of this morning, there were still rolling protests on some roads.
The new measures go before TDs on Tuesday.
Prominent protesters, such as Westmeath farmer James Geoghegan, have already said the package does not go far enough and are pledging more blockades – this time against critical infrastructure. His colleague John Dallon had suggested the protest movement had grown into something that he had “no control over”.
“This protest is out of my hands, it escalated to somewhat so big, and I don’t know where it’s going to end, but it’s the Government’s fault,” he told Newstalk.
For what it’s worth, Dallon welcomed the cut to green diesel but said the Government “should have done something” on kerosene.
Sinn Féin says the Government measures fall well short of what is needed and shows the Government is out of touch with the pressures faced by working families, carers and people with disabilities.
Its finance spokesman Pearse Doherty says it could have further reduced the price of diesel and petrol and got rid of excise on home heating oil altogether.
The party will be tabling a vote of no confidence in the Government this week – and the Social Democrats and Independent Ireland have said they’re on board with it.
There will be plenty more slanging matches over the coming days if the national airwaves were any indication this morning. The Taoiseach has accused the Opposition parties of having supported the blockades.
Independent Ireland’s Michael Collins said that the group’s TDs did not call for the blockades – but they did support them.
And there will be some soul-searching within the upper echelons of Government too, it seems.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee, when asked about her colleague Jim O’Callaghan’s announcement last week that he would bring in the Army to deal with blockades, told RTÉ Radio that “things at a senior level can be improved” and “we need to look at how processes were put in place”.
Meanwhile, Ireland’s man in Brussels is this morning urging the European Commission to show flexibility on the excise rules etc. Commissioner Michael McGrath has been following up on that letter sent by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste last week asking for Europe to throw them a bone.
And boy might they need it.
Blockade to Blockade
Because, in not entirely unrelated blockade news, Donald Trump is unhappy with Iran’s failure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In response, he has summoned the might of the US Navy to ... blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
The oil traders took a bit of fright again on Sunday night – and pushed the price of oil back over $100.
Depending on how seriously said blockade is actually applied to tankers leaving Iranian ports, the old barrel of brent crude could again test the heights of recent weeks. Gas prices were on the way up this morning as well.
The prospect of new financial measures at home being eaten up in another round of escalation in the Gulf will weigh heavily on Irish policy-makers.
A 21-hour bout of negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad failed to bridge the gap between the two sides. US vice-president JD Vance departed with a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer to Tehran – which is not bowing to demands it abandon its uranium enrichment programme.
Trump, in between taking in a bit of cage-fighting and Rory McIlroy’s US Masters win over the weekend, found the time to take a swing at the pope.
It wasn’t exactly Joseph Stalin’s famous riposte to Pope Pius XII – “how many divisions has he got?” – but the US president accused Leo XIV of being “WEAK on crime” and not sufficiently tough on all manner of international military interventions.
He then went on to post a picture online of himself dressed in robes healing a sick patient through the power of touch alone. Stalin didn’t think of that one.
