Bob Gill

It will only take one country in Europe to push back against their leftist leaders who are willfully destroying their culture, to inspire the others to follow. For a while it was looking like the UK would be the ones to lead the way. It will be Ireland.

John Dallon tells Gript that pepper-spraying Irish people in Whitegate was a "total and utter disgrace".

A local priest celebrates mass in the back of a truck at the Athlone fuel protest this morning. The protests in Dublin, Cork and Galway may have been broken up overnight, but this movement is far from finished, with many protests still ongoing around the country today.

The protests in Ireland are not about just fuel! They are about the distance between Ireland on this graph and every other modern and developed economy. Ireland is second wealthiest but gets waaaaay less than any other country for that wealth. By a golden mile. That visual gap in this graph? That’s what people are protesting. It’s a lack of infrastructure and the everyday enshittification of services, the economy, and the additional difficulty of trying to live, relative to peers in any other country. It also highlights why people don’t get uniformly listened to! - because there is no government architecture to engage meaningfully across this huge gap. That gap is a three hour drive to work in traffic, a 14 month wait for an MRI, buses that don’t arrive, trains that don’t exist, schools that have no places for your kids, houses that are unaffordable, pubs that close before midnight, €12 sandwiches, expensive fuel. People feel this gap, even if they can’t explain it precisely. And that builds into resentment, and ultimately protest. Fuel just happened to be the next thing that could be pointed to, today.

Statement Release: “They’re Starving Us Out” – Fuel Protest Organiser John Dallon Slams Garda Tactics and Urges Public to Contact Ministers and Opposition TDs A leading organiser of Ireland’s fuel price protests has strongly condemned what he described as heavy-handed policing at the Whitegate oil refinery, accusing the authorities of unacceptable violence against peaceful demonstrators. John Dallon, a Kildare farmer and prominent spokesperson for the National Fuel Demonstrations, reacted sharply to Friday’s operation in which Garda public order units used pepper spray and forced removals to clear blockades and allow fuel tankers access to the country’s only oil refinery. “These were shocking tactics from Minister Martin, a man of supposed integrity and intelligence,” Dallon said. “The level of violence was utterly unacceptable dragging men across the ground and pepper spraying them”, He continued that the situation had escalated to the point where the Gardaí were “attempting to starve the people out” by not allowing protesters access to shops for basic supplies. Dallon called for widespread public support in Cork and across the country. He urged people to email and phone government ministers to condemn the actions, and to contact opposition TDs and councillors to come together and back the demonstrations. The protests, now in their fourth day, demand an immediate cap on diesel prices, the removal of carbon tax and excise duties, and genuine engagement with the Government.