Fuel Protests: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14
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Tom Clonan (IND), University of Dublin

The Defence Forces were inappropriately tasked through the C70, which involves aid to the civil power. This involves the use of force. Obviously, during the Troubles, we had aid-to-the-civil-power operations. I was involved in armed operations in support of An Garda Síochána, but you do not deploy in that manner for a civilian protest. We did not do it during the H-Block protests, the burning down of the British Embassy, the Love Ulster parade or the Dublin riots. Margaret Thatcher did not even deploy the army against the miners in the UK. It is a no-no across Europe. There is no other jurisdiction in the European Union that will deploy the military onto the streets when policing becomes difficult.
The Defence Forces should have been deployed in the aftermath by the local authority to help to remove whatever was left behind but they should never have been in the sightline of protesters. That is not a criticism of the Defence Forces or of An Garda Síochána.
I made it very clear in my communication that once critical infrastructure was at crisis point, the protesters should have dispersed peacefully and without hindrance to An Garda Síochána. I pay tribute to the young men and women of An Garda Síochána, who did a very difficult job under some considerable provocation from some of the minority at the protests.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

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