HAULIER Michael Horan fears his century-old family business may be reaching its end.
Since the Iran War, his diesel bill to run five lorries delivering grain across Ireland – which requires 15,000 liters of fuel per month – has risen by more than £6,500.
“We’re barely surviving,” the father of two tells me.
“We are on the floor.
“There is no future in this business.”
Shaking his head, he blames the steep tax rates – which also include green fees – which account for almost half the cost of a tank of diesel.
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That’s why the Irishman joins hundreds of other haulers, farmers, coach drivers, contractors and more Motorists paralyze Ireland at protests In the last week.
angry protesters blockaded Whitegate Oil Refinery in CorkPicketed at ports and caused retreat on motorways with convoys of tractors.
Holidaymakers were forced to walk down the hard shoulder of the M50 with their suitcases after protesters blocked the motorway. dublin airport.
O’Connell Street The center of the capital was blocked off by HGVs and tractors carrying signs saying No Fuel, No Food and Can’t Afford to Move.
Farming contractor Christopher Duffy told fuel protesters in Dublin: “The country is ours.”
Irish government panicked Army called before announcing tax cut on petrol and diesel.
Now British farmers are threatening to fuel protests unless Chancellor Rachel Reeves cuts taxes.
William Taylor, coordinator of UK Farmers for Action, anticipated the British fuel protests of 2000 when farmers blockaded the country’s six largest refineries.
Farmer said: “Farmers for Action was born out of the 2000 fuel strike, where Britain was brought to a standstill for five days until the government was heard.
“Got to learn a lot.”
Howard Cox, founder of lobby group FairFuelUK, said the British demos would not target fuel depots or block roads.
Reform’s 2024 candidate for London mayor said: “I have been discussing organizing fuel protests across the UK.
“They will be peaceful demonstrations by farmers, small businesses, taxi drivers and motorists who are being punished by Rachel Reeves’s inaction to help motorists during a life-threatening crisis.”
shock waves The Iran war is now echoing across the green fields of County Kildare in the Middle East, 3,700 miles away from the Dust Bowl.
In this delightful patchwork of thoroughbred stud paddocks and cattle pastures, many people have been radicalized in what they call the fight for their livelihood.
John Dallon, a 61-year-old farmer and agricultural contractor, has been one of the most prominent voices in the protests that began on April 7.
John, who raises beef cattle in Crookstown, County Kildare, told me: “We don’t know where the price of diesel is going to end up.
“It is increasing.
“The cost of living is skyrocketing.
“It is affecting people from the agricultural sector to the haulage sector, the building industry and the bus companies that transport children to school.
“The people of this country are pleading with the government to save our economy.”
Irish protests It has been compared to the gilets jaunes (yellow vest) grassroots fueled demonstrations that rocked France in 2018.
John, a fourth-generation beef farmer, says of his new campaign enthusiasm: “I’m not a political person, but I’ve become very angry at the way our government is run.
“They are cut off from the common people.”
He also feared Demos would migrate across the Irish Sea because English farmers are “under atrocious pressure”.
And he said the British government needed to remember that “farmers are the people who put food on the table three times a day”.
There seems to be little chance of the global fuel crisis abating.
On Monday the US announced it would block Iranian ports after the mullahs closed the Strait of Hormuz to most shipping.
Oil has risen to more than $100 a barrel and prices at the fuel pump have soared around the world.
Rural Ireland – which relies on diesel for its tractors and lorries as well as kerosene to heat many remote homes – began to falter as diesel prices There was an increase of more than 20 percent.
Any increase in prices means more tax revenue for the Irish exchequer.
yesterday in a garage N7 motorwayUnleaded petrol cost around €2 (£1.74) per liter and premium diesel less than €2.28 (£1.98).
Farmers and lorry drivers have recently begun to organize to protect their livelihoods.
WhatsApp groups and social media turned it into a nationwide protest.
Their demands include capping fuel prices at around €1.85 (£1.60) for regular diesel and €1.10 (96p) for kerosene home heating oil, abolishing the carbon fuel tax and energy credits for homes and businesses.
A poll by The Sunday Independent newspaper showed that 56 percent of voters support the protesters.
Convoys of slow-moving tractors caused motorway jams and the country’s only major fuel depots – in Limerick and Galway – were blocked.
For five days, farmers, freight forwarders and taxi drivers blocked Cork’s Whitegate refinery, which produces all of Ireland’s petrol and diesel.
Panic buying spread like wildfire and 600 of Ireland’s 1,500 petrol stations closed.
Irish Finance Minister Simon Harris called it a “very dangerous moment”, while Prime Minister Michael Martin said the blockade was “damaging Ireland’s economy and society”.
The leader of the centre-right Fianna Fáil party said “self-appointed” groups do not have the right to “shut down the country”.
The Irish government was forced to act, and on Saturday police – supported by army engineers with heavy-lift trucks – moved in to lift the Whitehaven refinery blockade.
Tensions escalated as officers used pepper spray on protesters, with video footage showing at least one protester being dragged by a tractor.
Police said they broke the blockade to save “emergency public services, including ambulance and fire services” from fuel shortages.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, riot police and mounted officers broke up a protest in O’Connell Street as a helicopter hovered overhead.
John Dallon, a farmer who was there, told me: “I thought I was in Beirut.
“A bunch of police came in.
“Everyone was scared.
“I have never seen anything like this.
“You are allowed under your constitutional right to protest peacefully.”
Other blockades across the country were also broken and on Sunday the Irish government announced a £440 million package to deal with the crisis.
This includes a tax cut of around 9p on both petrol and diesel until the end of July, a delay in the carbon tax rise until October and millions in subsidies for the worst-hit industries.
Yet tractor protests spread to Northern Ireland yesterday as convoys slowed, causing traffic jams on many Irish main roads on Monday.
In the coffee shop of the Texaco garage in Crookstown, I meet Kevin Doody, a 48-year-old local freight hauler who says his latest fuel bill is rising by more than the government’s tax cut.
The father-of-three, from Grangecon, County Wicklow, whose 13 trucks and 17 staff move refrigerated beef across Ireland, said: “The tax breaks have already disappeared.
“They need to get rid of the carbon tax altogether.
“I bought my first truck when I was 22.
“I haven’t done anything else in my entire life.
“We are barely surviving.
“Rising fuel costs will mean higher prices on the shelves.
“It affects everybody.”
Yesterday the Irish government survived a confidence vote over its handling of the crisis.
There have been reports in the Irish media that some of the people attending the demonstrations have right-wing sympathies.
Kildare county councilor Tom McDonnell, 63, a builder and fuel campaigner who has been branded with that label, said: “I’m not against immigrants, just against illegal immigration.”
The father of eight believes the fuel protests will spread to Britain, saying, “We have inspired Britain to protest.”
On the other side of the Irish Sea, Howard Cox of FairfuelUK insisted: “I’ve always been against direct action, but over the next few weeks I’m being bombarded with requests to co-lead protests.”
Britain may also soon have to face a deadlock.
