Fuel Protests: Statements Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel I agree with Senator Collins. Sinn Féin has no confidence in Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry Independents who are propping up the Government. They are clearly opposed to the interests of ordinary people. It is interesting, as has been said, that Fianna Fáil Senators are complaining about Fine Gael Ministers. That may be payback for the Fine Gael Minister complaining about the Fianna Fáil Minister for calling out the Army. In some ways, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, has orphaned the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, and left him on his own, high and dry. Clearly, the Government parties do not have confidence in each other. The protests across this country in the past week are an example of frustration and anger. People are really frustrated that they have not been heard. I heard one of the spokespeople of the protests complaining that they had spoken to Senator Brady. Senator Brady apparently made multiple calls to a Fine Gael Minister, and the Fine Gael Minister ignored him. What hope do ordinary people have if the Minister is ignoring Senator Brady? It highlights how out of touch and elitist this Government is that its members would not even return calls from Fine Gael Senators. I hear that the Government is focused on unfortunate individuals missing doctor’s appointments. Of course, that is far from ideal. However, that is coming from the same Government that has overseen the destruction of the health system. Spina bifida patients are queueing up waiting for operations. Tell that to the parents of little Harvey Sherratt. Those families have been let down, time and again, by the health system that the Government has overseen. Yet it is highlighting people who are delayed getting to the doctor, which, of course, is unfortunate. Senator Clonan mentioned the Minister for justice calling out the Army. Anybody with a cursory knowledge of Irish history would know what that was going to do and how it was going to be perceived. Calling out the Army for civilian protests is unbelievable. It is unbelievable that any Minister would think that was okay, and that it was going to be well-received. The Government and the Minister should apologise to the Irish people for threatening them with the Army. It is unacceptable that the Army would be considered at all. We have a very good police force. It should be allowed to do its job and be resourced to do it. The Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, was looking for Coimisiún na Meán to carry out a probe into the national media. This is the same Minister who, when it was requested that there be a review of the coverage of the genocide in Gaza, said it was a chilling and outrageous attack on press freedom. What a hypocrite he is. People have lost confidence. As was said earlier, we are the messengers. If Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have confidence in themselves, let us go and have an election. --- 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