PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT TD Paul Murphy has reiterated his support for the fuel protests, despite being accosted by some participants earlier this week.

The Dublin South West TD was met with anger and chants of “shame on you” by a small group of protesters when he visited O’Connell Street earlier this week. 

A video captured by the Irish Mirror showed protesters shouting at the TD, with one woman shouting: “What’s a woman?” and “You do not stand with working-class people”. 

Murphy was forced to turn around and leave the scene. 

Speaking to The Journal today, Murphy said the interaction did not change his party’s support of the protest. 

He said there is “no question” that there are far-right people trying to intervene and be present in the protest but that those he interacted with earlier this week were all people known to him and not representative of the protest at large. 

“All those people who were aggressive towards us are all people I know. They’re all known far-right agitators in Dublin.

“So some of these people are present and are trying to shape the protest, but one: the vast majority of people who are participating in the protest have nothing to do with the far right, whatsoever.

“And two: I really have a strong sense that ordinary working-class people in Dublin, people who live in Dublin South-West that I represent, have a lot of support for these protests,” Murphy said.

“Someone’s putting it up to the government [on the cost of living], that’s a good thing,” he added.

In his view, the challenge for political parties on the left is to stand with the protest despite the “presence of some far right people” and to see it as a starting point for a more “generalised protest” involving ordinary people and trade unions.

“We don’t think the Left should abandon these protests because there are some far-right people who are trying to influence them,” Murphy said. 

Fossil fuels

On how he marries some protesters’ calls for increased fossil fuel exploration with People Before Profits’ position that Ireland needs to wean itself off fossil fuels entirely, Murphy pointed to what he described as a “decades-long policy failure by Government”.

He said further reliance on fossil fuels makes “no sense”, but that the “truth is that huge numbers of ordinary people cannot get by without using fossil fuels for their cars, for their tractors, to heat their homes”.

Murphy said that as a result of the Government’s failure to transition the Irish economy away from fossil fuels, his party is in agreement with protesters that price controls are needed on gas and diesel. 

“But it has to be married to a program to break our reliance on fossil fuels,” he said.

United left?

While representatives from Sinn Féin, Aontú and Independent Ireland have all been vocal in their support of the fuel protests this week, other parties in the Dáil have taken different approaches. 

In a statement earlier this week, Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik urged protesters to end the blockades, arguing that they were causing significant disruption to workers and families”.

Bacik prefaced her request by saying that Labour recognises the right to protest and understands the “deep distress and frustration” of protesters.

Similarly, Social Democrats TDs have said that it is “wrong” to block roads and critical infrastructure, but that the Government needs to engage with protesters to bring it to an end. 

Meanwhile, the Green Party also called for the blockades to stop. 

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman called on Thursday for the Defence Forces and Gardaí to “unblock paths to public transport around the country”.

“The right to protest is not a right to hold people to ransom. Those leading the protests should look at the impact of their actions on people around the country, and stop blocking roads, public transport and fuel depots,” he said, adding that protesters should direct their energy at the US and Israeli embassies for causing the energy crisis with their attack on Iran.

On how these differing approaches to the protest affect efforts towards a ‘united Left’ in the Dáil, Murphy said he doesn’t believe they have any negative impact on that idea.

“If you had painted me a hypothetical situation of the current situation two weeks ago, and asked me, ‘How will different left parties react?’

“I think I could have predicted that the different parties would react in the way they have,” Murphy said.