Fuel protests will get ‘very nasty’ warns prominent Sligo protester saying farmers, hauliers and ordinary people are ‘fighting to survive’

By Philip Rooney, The Sligo Champion

With protests continuing nationwide for a third day and expected to continue as the week progresses, Sligo Independent Ireland Councillor, Michael Clarke has called on the government to listen to the protestors who he said are at their wits end as a result of soaring fuel and heating costs.

Having taken part in Tuesday’s protest that saw slow moving vehicles bring towns across the country, including Sligo, to a crawl Cllr Clarke stressed what he said was the significance and importance of the protests against soaring fuel prices.

“Since the foundation of the State we have never witnessed such a protest, such an outcry from so many sectors looking for help, looking for the government to help and it is falling on deaf ears. A lot of people I spoke to yesterday (Tuesday) were not impressed with a lot of politicians.

"In any protest down through the years, not matter what party you were a member of, or if you were an independent, you would always go to the protest and listen to the people and try to represent them within your party or your organisation but I tell you there were a lot of people yesterday that were very fed up. I was the only politician in the north west at the Sligo protest on Tuesday.

Further protests are planned on Wednesday in Sligo.

“It’s not good enough that these politicians get elected and then disappear. If you look at all the sectors that were there, you see the haulage, the bus people, home help people, I saw 10 nurses out from Kingsbridge hospital clapping the protest. I saw all the shoppers giving thumbs up supporting them.”

Outlining why there is such anger among those taking part in the protests, Cllr Clarke insisted people have been left with no choice but to take matters into their own hands and warned there will be a knock-on effect for everybody if prices aren't stabilised. He also highlighted the damaging effect it is having on mental health for many and insisted the protests will only escalate if no resolution is found.

“Food is gone up 10% in the last three months, people aren’t able to eat properly. When diesel goes up, the government are bailing out the registered contractors, the haulage industry official group but their official group also pass on that rise in diesel to their shops and the shops then rise food and clothes prices. If the government doesn’t act properly, in a decisive manner, you are going to see huge inflation, you are going to see a slow down in the building industry.

"You see any of the building sites around Sligo, the amount of diesel that is being used every day to run those machines to build the houses, you are talking about thousands of euro on to the top of the cost of a house.

“The government is asleep at the wheel. Those people that got elected to the Dáil and to Sligo County Council and Leitrim County Council and other councillors, where were they on Tuesday when their support was needed? People needed them to come and listen to their stories.

"The amount of people that I spoke to on Tuesday that their mental health is so badly effected because their business is going in to decline due to huge payments and they can’t make their payments and nobody is listening to them.

"The government said on Wednesday they won’t talk to them, they won’t listen to them. The government should be serving all the people not just the NGOs they have employed on their behalf that are getting huge money. Every independent trader that was there on Tuesday needs support and they need the government to listen to them and talk to them.”

Outlining his belief that the government has lost the support of the public, Cllr Clarke suggested a general election should be considered saying, “I genuinely believe that the government have lost the country now, this government has failed the people.

"I think the independent group who are supporting Fianna Fail and Fine Gael in government should consider pulling the plug and give us a general election because we are in such a serious situation financially. Nobody has confidence in the government or in any of the ministers at the moment.”

Cllr Clarke also expressed the opinion that utilising An Garda Siochana or the Defence Forces to end the protests would be misguided saying such a move would only serve to escalate the nationwide protests.

“I believe this is going to get very, very dangerous because I believe that the government now may use the Gardaí and the Defence Forces to clear those protestors. I know some of those protestors that are in Dublin personally, they are not moving, they are going no place and we are very lucky to have people like that.

"They don’t want to be there, they want to be at their jobs, they want to be in their fields, they want to be in their cars, they want to be in their lorries but they have to be there because this is Armageddon for them, this is the end of the line if they don’t stay there.

"I believe the government are going to try to clear the protest in a heavy handed manner and if that happens you will see thousands of people on the streets. What you saw in Sligo on Tuesday was insignificant compared to what is going to happen because you will see a rebellion in this country against this heavy handed government that are not listening to people.

“The protest is going to get very nasty unless the government acts in a proper way. I believe the government are in financial difficulty and they are not telling people the whole story. The government are a joke. I could talk all day about them but it is very frustrating to hear people in such dire straits and the government ignoring them.

"There are so many people in this country who have no choice but to keep the protest going. If they had a choice, if they had a way out, I mean if you look at an ordinary farmer that makes we’ll say 300 bales of silage a year, the cost to him is €10 a bale extra this year because the price of diesel, the price of plastic and the price of fertilizer has gone up.

"The price of beef and the price of milk is falling. What the government have done to rural Ireland over the last 20 years, in relation to farming especially, rural housing, rural planning, they have absolutely wiped out the rural country.

"Sometimes I get emotional about it because it drives me mental, these guys do not know what they are at. There are so many people at the end of their tether financially, it’s not that they want to win this or beat the government, all they want to do is survive.

"Did you see all the bus operators going through town as part of the protest, they can’t get the VAT back on their diesel. They are not part of the compensation that was done for the haulage industry. They are caught into fixed contracts for going to schools and when those contracts are up for renewal they are going to walk away from those schools, walk away from those contracts.

"They are going to sell the buses because they can’t be operating at a loss. The agricultural contractors that won’t get diesel on credit now, they are going to do all the silage and plant all the seeds in the country, they are at their wits end. What are they to do?

"If the government doesn’t understand the situation that is around the nation at the minute, what happened Tuesday around the country is going to look very small. If they don’t wake up and reduce the price of diesel it will drive inflation upwards because you will see food continuing to rise and everything in shops."

Article Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.