THE FUEL PACKAGE announced by government yesterday after six days of nationwide protests on Irish roads is insufficient and will make little difference to people at the pump, opposition TDs said this morning. 

Sinn Féin’s deputy leader Pearse Doherty criticised the €505m package for its lack of intervention on the price of home heating oil and the small cut of excise duty on green diesel.

The package included a further 10c per litre excise duty cut on petrol and diesel, a 2.4c per litre excise cut on green diesel, and the deferment of the increase in carbon tax until the budget in October.

Doherty said the government should have removed carbon tax and cut excise duty on home heating oil, and cut excise on green diesel by 20c a litre as well as removing carbon tax.

He said it was “laughable” that government will now put up carbon tax on home heating oil and gas in the budget in October, “when people use it most”.

His criticism was echoed by Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins. Both TDs were speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.

“Micheál Martin has been saying continuously, as leader of the country, that we’re giving the most. But what he hasn’t been saying is that they’re taking the most, up from any country and area in the world at this stage – people paying €2.20, €2.30 for a litre of diesel – that’s astonishing figures,” Collins said.

Doherty said Sinn Féin would be pressing ahead with its motion of no confidence in government over its handling of the fuel protests. Collins said his party would be supporting this motion, which gathered support from other opposition parties yesterday.

“It is very clear that the public had no confidence in this government, and anybody who was out in the streets talking to ordinary people the length the breadth of the State would have heard that,” Doherty said.

A smaller number of fuel protests continue this morning.

Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee defended the package following the criticism.

She fielded opposition assertions that the package was announced too late, stating it is the most significant package of its kind in Europe, and said government is not “profiteering” from tax on fuel.

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“The package that we are now announcing today, a cumulative package of almost three quarters of a billion, in fact, more than three quarters of a billion euro, is the highest per capita in Europe. This is not just a put together package, as has been suggested,” she said.

“I’m not sitting here saying, isn’t this great, isn’t this wonderful. This is a very difficult situation for everybody to be in,” she said.

Speaking on the conflict in the Middle East that led to the surge in fuel prices globally, she continued, “we now have, obviously, a negotiation over the weekend, which we’d hoped would provide some progress when it comes to a permanent ceasefire, that hasn’t happened yet.

“We have said always we have to respond to the ongoing global situation, and without knowing what it’s going to look like tomorrow, without knowing whether Trump will follow through on his statement that he’s going to move ships into the Strait of Hormuz, which I believe would be absolutely dire and would not help with any ceasefire.”