President should tell Army to stand down re fuel protests
Fuel protesters were pepper-sprayed and dragged out of their tractors by Gardaí and the Public Order Unit with backing from the Defence Forces in Whitegate in Cork this afternoon, an escalation by the State against its citizens which farmer and spokesman John Dallon described as a “total and utter disgrace”.
For information: pepper spray (oleoresin capsicum) causes ‘immediate, intense inflammation, leading to temporary blindness, severe burning sensations, and breathing difficulties. Effects typically last 10 to 60 minutes, with immediate symptoms including uncontrollable coughing, choking, and pain’, according to Poison Control.
This Government has gone rogue: hammering ordinary people with punitive fuel taxes and then threatening those who dare to protest, not just with heavy-handed policing and damage to their property, but with the deployment of the Army.
Last year, when Catherine Connolly won the two-horse race for the Presidency, I wrote that, while I disagreed with many of her political opinions. I was happy to take her at face-value when she said she wanted to be a unifying President.
I said that “I was one of an unprecedented number of people who spoiled our votes to send a message”, but that a President who genuinely wanted to unify the nation could reach out to those increasing numbers of people who felt disenfranchised and disconnected from an increasingly elitist and out-of-touch political establishment.
This week, as fuel protests convulsed the nation, and ordinary men and women stood to speak for so many of us as they called for a cut to the carbon taxes piling cost onto already crippled families and small businesses, the response of the government was to say they would call in the tanks against peaceful protesters.
President Connolly is Supreme Commander of the Irish Defence Forces. She should tell the Army to stand down. While her position may be a constitutional title, and while her role is largely ceremonial, the symbolism of that call would be truly powerful: a President for the people standing up to a Government that has lost legitimacy. The unifying effect would be tremendous.
Yesterday, in the confusion of the thousands of videos and news reports this interview with a visibly upset fuel protester stood out to me. “I’m finding it very hard,” he said. “We’re out here in the rain on the side of the road like paupers, just trying to get fairness. And the Taoiseach of the country coming out, bringing the Defence Forces to take us off the streets like we’re peasants. We’re hard-working people and all we want is fairness, that’s all we want.”
Aren’t the Irish people entitled to fairness? Aren’t small businesses – the backbone of every economy – entitled to a system that puts their survival at the heart of government policy, rather than allowing fuel taxes become so burdensome that only Big Tech and data centres can likely survive?
The government took in an eye-watering €4.3 Billion euros in 2024 on fuel taxes alone. Carbon taxes amounted to €1.17 Billion of that haul. It’s easy pickings for a government already flush from an enormous multinational corporation tax take – and the carbon tax rate charged is only set to get higher each year.
Many of those engaging in the relentless media spin seeking to demonise the protesters this week fail to acknowledge two key facts:
1. The protesters are not simply standing up in desperation for their farms or family businesses but for everyone because fuel price rises make everything more expensive, not just food production but distribution and building and electricity and travel and all we consume without thinking about it was delivered to our supermarket shelves or our homes.
2. The carbon tax piled on the cost of petrol and diesel and gas and home heating oil have gone up five-fold (400%) since they were first introduced – and will increase further every year until 2030. The government plans to make your fuel more expensive. Isn’t it time the penny dropped for the rest of us?
Too many of the Irish people have spent the past fours years anxiously watching the price of energy, and dreading the next electricity bill, while watching their children emigrate because of the cost of living and the fear that – educated and clever as they may be – they will never be able to buy a house in the country where their ancestors lived for countless generations.
So as a people we need to decide what kind of a future we want: one where the people and the people’s needs come first, or on where the government continues to force through wildly unpopular policies with boots and batons.
I am fully aware that actual military command and day-to-day management of the Army is exercised by the Government through the Minister for Defence. But these are exceptional, extraordinary times. The President could, and should, step up.
In 1976, the then Minister for Defence, Paddy Donegan, referred to President Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh as “a thundering disgrace” because Ó Dálaigh had referred the Emergency Powers Bill 1976 to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality. When the Cosgrave government refused to fire Minister Donegan, Ó Dálaigh – described by the New York Times as a “distinguished law expert” – resigned. His stance underlined the importance of the independence of the Presidency.
The website of Uachtarán na hÉireann says that President Connolly “wants to be a President for all the people, especially for those often excluded and silenced” and that “she wants to be a voice for equality and justice”.
Perhaps she might consider this photo of a elderly man posted by Limerick Now, which was commented on by the man’s daughter who said: “Here’s my dad, 3 months after knee surgery, in his 70s. Driving all his life. Into his 4th night on O’Connell Bridge, Dublin.”
Isn’t it a mark of shame for this supposedly wealthy country that an elderly man feels compelled to spend night after night out in the cold to urge this government to talk to protesters who say the fuel crisis is crashing their livelihoods and making the lives of the most vulnerable unbearable.
And isn’t is worth being the kind of President who would speak up for this man? What say you Catherine Connolly?
