Fuel Protests: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14
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Mark Duffy (FG), Labour Panel

The people of the nation are hurting. Over the past number of weeks in every community, town and village, the protests and demonstrations have reflected huge frustration and anger across the community. It has left a sour taste this afternoon in the Seanad and the Dáil and has divided us. It has divided us in reaction to a fuel crisis that has shocked international markets across the world. We are facing an international crisis. As a country, we have always worked well under pressure, whether that be the financial crash in the 2000s, or more recently with Brexit, when we worked together and supported each diplomatically to deliver a strong Brexit deal. During Covid we worked as a community, as a society and as parliamentarians together and got through that. More recently, there have been energy shocks with the Ukraine-Russia war.
In the last number of weeks, the Government has made efforts to respond to the crisis in energy prices. While it was not enough in the previous sitting of the Dáil to react to that crisis because of the volatility of the market, a second package was announced on Sunday and will be legislated for today. This will go into the pockets of the people who feel under pressure. It needs to make sure that these schemes deliver for the bus contractors on fixed-price contracts who are bringing children to school and the hauliers who are stocking the shelves and delivering produce across the country. It needs to deliver for the hauliers and for the ferry operators who are bringing people to and from the islands of our country. It needs to support everyone who is affected and out of pocket. It is a substantial level of investment.
It has been a difficult time for everyone. There has been a lot of hostility and anger. People have the right to protest, but they do not have the right to block and impede critical infrastructure. That undermines the operations of the State. That is what took place. There has been agitation by Members of both Houses and by members of protest groups, who have tried to undermine, mislead and conflate what is an international crisis. As Irish people, we work well and deliver well when we work together and pull together. This is something that has happened external to our control and the Government is trying to respond to it in real time. I hope that this is an opportunity for us as a country to prioritise our energy security and move forward with critical infrastructure that means we can mitigate the worst challenges that can be put before us by a crisis like this.
I acknowledge the people in Mayo who protested peacefully in Ballina and Castlebar over the past number of days and the gardaí who have been put in such a difficult position across the country. We need to make sure that we expedite critical infrastructure to make sure that we have energy security in this country.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-14