Protests continue in North Tipp
Fallout from the recent protests over fuel prices continues to reverberate in North Tipperary, with local TDs attracting national headlines over their position on the issue.
Fianna Fáil’s Ryan O’Meara made a bold stand over the Government’s handling of the situation, suggesting his party had lost touch with the public and expressing “deep concern” over the events of recent weeks (see lead story).
Michael Lowry also criticised the Government response, but he has taken issue with the protests, which the Independent TD said began with “many aggrieved, hard-working, decent, respectable people who are worried sick about their future”, only to be “later infiltrated by undesirables, whose only agenda was to cripple the country and bring down the Government”.
Speaking in the Dáil last week ahead of a protest organised in his home town of Thurles on Saturday, Deputy Lowry said “Sinn Féin and others on the left have inflamed a very volatile situation.”
“In a moment of global instability when we need responsibility, and a collective effort, they have chosen division, disruption, and political opportunism. To bring down a government at a time like this would have far-reaching consequences by the Irish people.”
NO CONFIDENCE
Deputy Lowry made his comments on a vote of no confidence in the Government, tabled by Opposition TDs in the Dáil last week. While he and Deputy O’Meara supported the Government, Labour’s Alan Kelly voted for the no confidence motion, saying the fuel package announced to address the crisis did not go far enough.
“We have no confidence in them helping ordinary working people and the vulnerable,” Deputy Kelly stated. “This Government needs to also understand that ordinary workers and the vulnerable are struggling continuously. Industries can’t operate without workers. The impact of the cost of living crisis on these workers has been immense and we need to see a full package of supports for them too.
“We are once again calling on the Government now to deliver for these people who have to travel to work, buy groceries, pay for medicines, raise families. Working people, those on fixed incomes, the vulnerable should always be our priority. They must be helped, supported and protected.”
‘LOST ITS MANDATE’
Addressing the Dáil, Deputy Kelly hit out at the deployment of the Defence Forces as part of the response to the protests earlier this month. “When a government believes that bringing in the army is the solution rather than actually dealing with ordinary workers and ordinary people’s concerns, then that’s not a government that’s out of touch – that’s a government that has lost its mandate,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nenagh’s Cllr Séamie Morris last week wrote an open letter to An Taoiseach in which he criticised Government management of finances that has failed to deal with “crisis after crisis in housing, hospitals, health, rural crime, drugs, transport, GP access, and the overall cost of living”.
“Since 2020,” Cllr Morris wrote, “you have taken €15.1 billion in energy taxes and then handed back a mere €750 million last week, as if that token gesture would appease the ‘revolting peasants’.”
The Independent councillor slammed “baffling” decisions to de-zone land previously set aside for residential use and issue over 174,000 work permits during a housing crisis, the latter move “effectively pitting these new arrivals against young Irish families already struggling to find homes”.
Among other points raised in the letter, Cllr Morris said the Government appeared to have “an endless supply of money - €1.25 billion in 2025 - for questionable IPAS landlords, yet rural towns are starved of investment in infrastructure and housing.”
‘IVORY TOWER’
These, he told Micheál Martin, were things to consider “as you look down from your ivory tower and wonder why ordinary people are revolting”.
Saturday’s protest in Thurles over fuel prices and the general cost of living was organised by Dan Harty, Cathaoirleach of North Tipperary Sinn Féin. Commenting after the protest, Mr Harty said: “We sent out a clear message that businesses, workers and households in Thurles and across Tipperary are feeling the pinch when it comes to the current cost of living crisis.
“The price of fuel at the pumps needs to continue to fall; there are over 350,000 people in arrears with their electricity bills and the price of home heating oil is extortionate. People needs extra supports and that is a reality.”