Opposition parties have all come out in support of those protesting against fuel prices, but have been reluctant to explicitly endorse tactics used by those who blockaded a number of ports and the country’s only oil refinery.
The main Opposition parties are preparing to support a Sinn Féin motion of no confidence in the Government this week.
On Sunday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said those tabling the motion “need to examine what they’re about, because they supported the blockades”.
“Some TDs in the Opposition became marshals, to determine who gets oil and who doesn’t get oil. Those people are not fit for Government, if that is their approach to the Constitution and the parliamentary democratic system that we have in this country,” he said.
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Before they were cleared in a number of Garda operations this weekend, the blockades had threatened the national supply of fuel to emergency vehicles and healthcare workers, as well as supplies of food on trucks that were at risk of being turned away from ports blocked by demonstrators.
A number of TDs, including Independent Ireland’s Ken O’Flynn and Richard O’Donoghue, and Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín, had posted videos online congratulating demonstrators who had decided to allow small numbers of tankers through Whitegate oil refinery and some of the country’s ports.
In his video, O’Flynn said the protesters were doing “everything” right.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland programme on Monday, Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins said his party “did not call for any blockades, but we certainly did support them”.
Tóibín, in his social media posts, said protesters were “willing” to allow fuel to pass through Whitegate in order to help emergency services.
He told The Irish Times that “no one wanted to see these blockades. We wanted to see a reduction in the massive taxes on fuel and dialogue with the protesters so everyone could go home”.
A number of Sinn Féin representatives attended and supported the protests. The party’s finance spokesman, Pearse Doherty, declined to say explicitly if Sinn Féin had supported blockades, saying only that the party had “stood with ordinary people right across the length and breadth of the country”.
“We supported the protests,” Doherty said on Morning Ireland on Monday, but declined to say if he agreed that the blockades were illegal.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said his party favoured “robust” tactics “that really force the cost-of-living crisis into the face of this Government”.
Asked again if his party was supportive of blockades, he said it was “supportive of the motives that drove those protests”.
His party colleague, Paul Murphy, had been shouted down by a small minority of demonstrators on O’Connell Street last week. Murphy said these were agitators who were known to him, and who were “not representative” of the wider protest movement.
Murphy did raise concerns about some social media comments made by Christopher Duffy, one of the spokesmen and leaders of the protests.
Duffy had previously shared extremely anti-immigration, far-right and climate change denialism content online, as well as making comments suggesting he would not care if climate justice activist Greta Thunberg was raped.
Murphy said Duffy had “quite horrific” social media posts, in particular the post about Thunberg.
“Are there people involved in this movement who have views that we really, very, very strongly disagree with? Definitely, but we see this as being a movement around the cost-of-living crisis, and we’ve been involved in organising around the cost-of-living crisis for years,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Social Democrats said the party had “huge empathy for protesters and people really struggling with the cost of living but we do not, and did not, support the blockades”.
She added: “Instead of attacking the Opposition, the Taoiseach should engage in some reflection about the Government’s complete mishandling of this issue.”
The Labour Party had last week called for the protesters to remove the blockades in order to end the significant disruption those blockades were causing.
“Unfortunately the Government acted on this far too slowly and the disruption worsened over the week,” a spokeswoman said.
