Fuel Protests - Dublin 11 April

MrMusician18

Tomorrow a large protest is being organised by a group calling themselves "The People of Ireland Against Fuel Prices". The last time they had their day out it turned into a damp squib, but the warnings about disruption tend to point to this being more disruptive. They seem to be a rag tag bunch organising through your favourite social media platforms as per usual.

Among their demands is a price cap. The caps the group are seeking are €1.10 per litre for petrol, €1.20 per litre for diesel, 65c per litre for green diesel and 65c per litre for home heating oil. Oh and the resignation of Eamonn Ryan.

Given that the price of fuel is being driven by global events well outside of the government's control, it strikes me as a completely pointless protest that will only disrupt the ordinary working stiff.

Tldr, avoid Dublin city centre tomorrow.

SouthWesterly

I'd support them just for getting rid of ER.

gipi

And, as the Dáil are in recess, who are they going to protest to?

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118908908#Comment_118908908

Like that's going to happen.

The rest of the Government would all be thinking who else is going get cancelled next.

Faugheen

A group of truckers are happy to sit in town for days while they all miss out on income they would earn if they were actually working.

Don't believe it for one second.

SouthWesterly

Once it's over by Wednesday evening. I've to drive to Dublin Thursday morning with my son for a hospital appointment

elperello

They are threatening to dig in for more than a week.

https://www.thejournal.ie/haulier-protest-dublin-monday-5733674-Apr2022/

Damien360

The pricing request on fuel is unrealistic but if you think it’s just a few truckers effected you are fooling yourselves.

The cost of transport is rising fast and that has a knock on effect with food prices. Wages are not rising to meet those costs for workers or small firms.

Not all those rises are caused by world events and you should ask how much taxation on transport is too much. A carbon tax added so we can be the best in the world and get a clap on the back of self congratulations that our tiny contribution will save the rest of the world.

Be prepared to pay a lot more for meat as we cull our herd to cut emmisions. Don’t worry some other country will make up the shortfall but we will pay the price for this. I’d like to see farmers join in and point this out but they will get attacked by the media as the greedy mob looking for handouts (which keep food prices down for the consumer) and their protest will fall on its face.

As a nation we don’t protest about anything but grumble about it instead.

The protest will effect my journey tomorrow but I will happily sit in it and tell my customers when I eventually arrive that the truckers are right to protest.

DarkJager21

Every motorist in the country should be behind this protest, best of luck to them

Polar101

Great.. idiots blocking the streets to protest when the politicians are on their holidays.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909082#Comment_118909082

Why should every motorist be behind them? What mandate have these protesters? As a motorist, I think it's a stupid protest and will only serve to piss off anyone who might have sympathy with them.

DarkJager21

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909128#Comment_118909128

Because we are being screwed over and over and over, from fuel prices to motor tax rates to roads being reduced in size for pointless unused cycle lanes, all overseen by a minister of transport who’s a **** cyclist and rabidly anti motorist. I hope they grind the place to a **** halt for 10 days.

DaCor

Just to point out that to meet their demands the govt would have to either slash spending (health, education and social services would be hit badly as the biggest costs) or massively increase taxes to cover the cost of reducing fuels.

Neither is going to happen.

In other news, the reddit thread on the protest is hilarious. The general public think little of the protest and their demands

https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/u0nrze/details_of_fuel_protest_tomorrow/

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909141#Comment_118909141

That still won't change the price of fuel.

Rather ironically, some of the supporters of the individual that's caused this will be out tomorrow, if previous protests are anything to go by.

BorneTobyWilde

The trouble with the fuel price is that vat was expected to be on fuel in a 0.70 - 1.00 price range. Todays fuel prices have 0.40 cent per litre vat on it, that's nuts, no one expect 2 euro a litre fuel. Government expected to take 23c max on fuel for every litre, when it got to 1.23 a litre, as in 0.23 was vat.

But now at 2 euro a litre they take 0.40 c, that's nuts, Vat should be capped at 0.23 per litre of fuel, even if fuel was 10 euro a litre.

They should not get 10 times vat, just because the price of fuel is 10 euro a litre, you still are only getting a litre of fuel.

So the little guy pays ten times the price, while also they only got 1 lousy litre of fuel.

BorneTobyWilde

Vat is the issue, it should be capped at 0.23 per litre, that way the government get what THEY ALWAYS GOT 0.23!, So they lose not a thing, while it saves the public a lot, as also most people don't, and can't claim back that vat, so it goes straight into Governments pockets.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909205#Comment_118909205

Vat on fuel is 13.5% iirc.

DaCor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909205#Comment_118909205

Should the same be done with stamp duty?

What about VRT?

Or VAT on anything else?

At the end of the day taxation pays for a lot services and you'd want to be very very sure you want to give up that tax when you have things like 200,000 Ukrainian refugees, housing shortages, covid still hanging about etc etc.

BorneTobyWilde

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909215#Comment_118909215

No, it's 0.23% on petrol and diesel

Fandymo

Ireland, the land of the thousand me feiners. Whinge about the price of everything, then whinge when someone tries to do something about it.

I like that they're against fuel prices in general, not high fuel prices or low fuel prices, just fuel prices at all.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909225#Comment_118909225

If it were an actual possibility that this protest could achieve anything, while I might not support it, I could at least understand it. The Irish government are not going to stop the war in Ukraine.

The off the wall demands of this group are completely unattainable. And since they are such a disparate loose collective, they have no spokesperson and no leader, so no one to negotiate with.

All this group will achieve is lost time and wasted fuel for the average Joe trying to go about their business.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909226#Comment_118909226

Major brains behind the operation as you can tell.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909236#Comment_118909236

Ah yeah. And I'm sure if they were to get their way and the government went further and put a cap on what they can charge per delivery or per km or per hour they'd be all in favour of that as well.

rolling boh

Complete waste of time will achieve nothing .Price of fuels has gone mad but the powers that be will do nothing and even if they made some sort of gesture they would recoup it somewhere else .People should have a right to protest I accept that so will have to suck it up .

[Deleted User]

Reading the comments is kind of shocking but a lot of Irish people are very passive.

This is the one point in my life that I am truly terrified of the cost of living and genuinely worried about being able to feed my family if costs go up much more. I don't even live in a city and I have a good salary.

I completely understand that there is a war going on but there is HUGE price gouging going on. The recent increase in electricity being one. SSE 100% renewable electricity, hmmm.. From every window at the back of this house, I can see wind turbines.

When you pay taxes, you want someone you can spend the money wisely to get value for money. That isn't happening.

I don't support this government and I support the truckers. Someone needs to protest and say enough is enough.

We are working to pay bills only and I am sick and genuinely petrified.

rock22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909394#Comment_118909394

So you would be happy to pay more tax to subsidise the truckers fuels bills?

smurfjed

@rock22 if the Government set a fixed duty on fuel rather than a percentage plus VAT, the price of fuel wouldn't fluctuate so much and would be cheaper. And nobody would have to pay more tax.

Pussyhands

Go on lads! Cause carnage! Why are Irish people such wimps? Why do you lie down and take what's given to ya? Make these idiots feel uncomfortable and force them into change that they would do if they really wanted to anyways.

Look at the response to the Ukrainians yet we've had a housing crisis for a decade and all the government have done is drive prices higher.

Faugheen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118909469#Comment_118909469

Because most Irish people understand that fuel prices rising is a global issue.

Also, easy for someone like you to tell people to 'cause carnage' when it has zero impact on your life. The demands of this faceless organisation with nobody for the government to negotiate with are off the charts. They want fuel prices to return to 2009 levels. Never going to happen.

Also, the Dail is in recess this week. Literally the worst time to make a statement like this.

All it does is piss off the average motorist who will have to sit in traffic and burn off petrol that is costing them just as much as it costs these cowboys. Who's going to pay for that when this crowd don't get the demands they want?

'Force them into change' - this crowd won't force anything. They're workers, they can't afford to give up too much of their own time because if they're not on the road, they're not getting paid. Pointless exercise just designed to piss people off.

pjohnson

Fuel is so expensive for truckers they can afford to waste it on a stunt like this.