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“FUCKED OFF AND fucked over” was how one Fianna Fáil TD described the mood of the parliamentary party yesterday.
“The tail is wagging the dog at this stage,” they told The Journal, adding that the mood in the party is one of “worry” over how things are being handled at senior government level.
That sentiment has leaked through to Fine Gael also, with one TD saying that it has taken too long for the government to budge. A support package needs to be announced now, they said, as a matter of urgency.
The sense that the government took the wrong tack in how it handled the whole situation has also seeped into everyday popular culture, with online influencers and comedians commenting and poking fun at the situation.
Comedian Bernard O’Shea, who was a guest on the Late Late Show last night, posted on Instagram a reel titled: “When your Irish parents (government) have to do a U-turn when they get it oh so wrong.”
Making fun of the whole situation, he tells the camera:
“Myself and your mother have spoken and it might look like we got it wrong, it might look we’re backing down and that we overreacted – we don’t think so. I know everyone else thinks we got it wrong but your mother and I have spoken and we are still very angry.
“Just because we are backing down and it looks like we got it wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that we did, I can tell you that now.”
In a nutshell, it sums up how the public views the government right now. And it’s not a good look.
The truth is, this is a nuanced, exceptional controversy the government faces. There is no homogeneous group out protesting, as such, but an amalgamation of groups of people who have skin in the game.
Plenty of them are focused solely on the rising cost of fuel and the impact it is having on their livelihood. Crucially, they are not alone: there is a genuine frustration among the wider public over fuel prices.
There are also a number of ‘bad actors’ who have jumped on the bandwagon seeking to skew this to their own agenda – a point made strongly by the government this week.
The struggle the government has faced this week is acknowledging all of those factors in its response.
In coming out with its hard line at the beginning of the week, with threats of the army coming in to sort things out, it only managed to bolster the movement.
By portraying the protesters as being hijacked by the far-right, the government tried to put the whole mess into one simple box, which is easier to dismiss – but situations like this are rarely that simple.
As the crisis moved on and the blockades only got worse, government leaders moved to change the rhetoric, saying phrases like “we hear you” and appealing to the humanity of the protesters to let fuel through to help with the crippled emergency services.
This was too little, too late, and should have been a tactic used from the outset of this whole debacle.
Micheál Martin, Simon Harris and Jim O’Callaghan are experienced politicians, with an array of controversies under their belts that they have seen off, but in this instance, they looked at what was happening in far too simplistic terms and failed to take the temperature of the nation.
They didn’t factor in the wider mood of the public and the anxiety they feel, like the protesters, around the rising cost of fuel.
The majority of voxpops carried out on the general public showed that to be true this week. Most said they supported the protesters, though many disagreed with the level of disruption.
The Taoiseach and Tánaiste were also forewarned by one of the Dáil’s most senior politicians that trouble could be brewing in this area.
On 26 March, the former Ceann Comhairle Sean Ó Fearghaíl wrote a letter to the leaders stating that failure to meaningfully address the massive increase in the cost of agri-diesel is a “serious mistake, and needs to be rectified immediately”.
He outlined that otherwise, the increased costs would have a serious negative and damaging impacts on our vital agri-sector.
“This omission, coming as it does in the aftermath of the Bord Bia controversy where many farmers throughout the country were worked into a state of incandescent rage, serves only to now further infuriate an already deeply unhappy sector of our economy.
“As stated, in my opinion, the omission of significant agri supports is unwise and unfair.
“The failure to act will also have major political ramifications. The antipathy amongst farmers directed towards Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is unlike anything I have ever witnessed in the past, and if not addressed immediately, will do lasting and perhaps irreparable damage to previously good relations,” said Ó Fearghaíl.
This warning, which was also copied to the Minister for Energy and the Minister for Agriculture, appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
The situation managed to get worse on Friday when the self-appointed leaders of this movement turned up for a meeting at Agriculture House on Kildare Street, where government leaders and organised bodies were meeting to bash out a solution.
It had been flagged on RTE’s Prime Time by one leader that they had been invited to the meeting, only for Minister of State Timmy Dooley to shoot it down on live TV, saying he had heard no such thing.
The Taoiseach had said all week that he would not meet with self-appointed people who were not part of an organised body as it would open up the floodgates for other people to cause such disruption in the bid to get a meeting with government. It is a fair point.
But this, as the government has said itself, is an “exceptional” situation, one which has forced every garda in the country to be called back into work this weekend.
As one TD said to The Journal, having those men turned away from the meeting in front of the TV cameras is the most basic example of what not to do if you are trying to de-escalate a situation.
The rationale around such a decision has been questioned, particularly as it was a talking point for much of Friday whether the protesters would be allowed into the meeting or not. No one seemed to try to iron that out prior to the meeting taking place at 2.30pm yesterday.
Right now, as it stands, a temporary Fuel Support Scheme to assist farmers, hauliers and contractors most impacted by fuel price hikes is being hammered out.
Talks between the government and representative groups are continuing today, while tensions mount at the Whitegate refinery, with the public order unit using pepper spray today on some protesters.
Looking back over the week, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that this government was left scrambling in the face of a crisis this week.
Knee-jerk reactions, certain rhetoric and the failure to expedite talks to earlier in the week has resulted in the country creaking to a standstill in some cases.
The wrath of the Dáil will be felt next week when politicians return to Leinster House after the Easter break. This mess is far from over for this government.
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