ANOTHER BLOCKADE OVER the price of fuel is being planned, and those behind April’s protest remain starkly at odds with the government.

April’s protests broke out in response to higher prices of fuel, particularly petrol and diesel, caused by US attacks on Iran and the subsequent shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, an important waterway for exporting oil from the Middle-East.

The protests, largely fronted by hauliers, farmers and agricultural contractors, saw trucks and tractors block major roadways across the country, as well as ports and Ireland’s only oil refinery, creating artificial fuel shortages in some areas.

People involved in those protests are now trying to rally support for a similar blockade to protest the planned end of fuel subsidies in August. As yet, organisers have not confirmed that they will hold demonstrations or when they might be. 

Among these was James Geoghegan, one of those who acted as a spokesperson for protesters during the previous blockade.

“The government had a vote the other night to increase fuel prices by 32c a litre in the end of July. This is the money they took off a couple of months ago,” he said in a 20 June TikTok video.

“It’s an absolute disgrace that every Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TD in the country went the other night and voted to increase our fuel prices. They didn’t learn their lesson.”

Similar phrasing has been widely used on social media, including by Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty.

“Tonight, the government voted to increase the cost of petrol and diesel from 1 August,” Doherty published on social media, speaking about a vote that took place on 17 June. 

“They also voted to increase carbon taxes from October, driving up the cost of home heating oil as we head into the winter months.”

However, the phrasing is at odds with what the government has said, particularly around new plans to gradually return tax rates to normal over time that Simon Harris said on Thursday were being considered. 

There was indeed a vote like Doherty referenced, but no new taxes, duties or levies on fuel were voted on by the Dáil or the government, nor was any other legislation passed that is likely to drive up the costs of fuel.

Rather, the government voted against extending subsidies for fuel.

Additional measures

In April, the government announced additional measures to bring the price of fuels down. The package, worth €755 million, amounted to one of Europe’s biggest packages (though, despite the government’s claims, it was not the biggest).

These measures included cutting excise tax until the end of July, and postponing a planned increase in carbon tax until October, among other schemes.

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, the state spending watchdog, noted that the government’s supports were “contradictory” to its goals to reduce the use of fossil fuels, and said that the excise cut must be temporary.

However, the government hinted early in June that fuel tax cuts may be extended.

So, what was the vote on 17 June that has stirred up controversy?

The Dáil passed the Finance Bill 2026 that day. The purpose of this was to increase diesel rebates, as well as confirming the cuts to tax on mineral oil and the postponement of planned carbon tax increases.

Carbon tax, which is based on the amount of carbon dioxide that using a fuel emits, increases every year in an effort to get people to shift to more environmental ways of using energy. It will reach €100 per tonne of CO2 in 2030. 

However, the Finance Bill was not passed before some amendments were proposed.

Pearse Doherty had suggested a number of these, including amendments that would have effectively extended the cut in excise duty until October, and which would have stopped future carbon tax increases, which will be introduced annually until 2030.

These amendments were put to a vote, but none of them were passed.

So did the government actually vote to “increase fuel prices”?

They certainly voted not to extend temporary tax cuts that had reduced the price of fuel.

However, given that most people would not have been aware of the Finance Bill, let alone the proposed amendments to it, such narratives about it could make people think that the Dáil created new taxes, or agreed on new increases to taxes.

Instead, the vote simply confirmed that the normal schedule of taxes would resume.

“The effect of them voting against the amendment means that prices will increase at the pumps by 32 cents on a litre of Diesel and 27 cents on Petrol on 1 August – that is a fact,” Pearse Doherty said in a statement to The Journal.

“Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and Independents could have stopped this from happening by supporting the Sinn Féin amendment but chose not to.”

However, that statement – sent on 25 June – contrasted with reports earlier that day that government leaders are discussing how to gradually reduce the tax cuts over an extended timeline. 

“We will seek to avoid any sudden cliff edge for families and businesses,” Tánaiste Simon Harris told the Dáil, in a 25 June session where he described legislation going through the Dáil as “simply giving legislative underpinning to decisions we took many weeks ago.”

Harris also took issue with Doherty’s 32c figure in relation to diesel prices. 

“It is true that petrol and diesel prices are now lower than when we brought that in. As for whether they are lower by the 32 cent, they are not,” he said.

‘Taking the help away’

Fuel protest spokesperson James Geoghegan also made a claim about the previous protests in his video that contradict the government’s versions of events. 

“We stepped down the protests when we got a bit of help”, he says in his TikTok video. “But now they’re taking the help away.”

This is at odds with how the government has portrayed the situation.

They condemned the protesters in their official announcement of the measures, which they said were in response to soaring oil prices on international markets rather than  political pressure.

The government also thanked “the representative bodies for hauliers, farmers, fishers and contractors who have taken the time to constructively engage with us throughout the last six weeks”.

A first fuel relief package was announced in March, before the protests began.

The second fuel relief package was announced on 12 April, after six days of protests, which has often been seen as challenging the government’s version of events. 

However, the government says it was already in talks with representative organisations for hauliers, farmers and transport providers (who did not support the protests) before the blockades began.

The package was announced after gardaí removed the major protest blockades.

After it was announced, Geoghegan initially called the fuel relief “insulting” and vowed to continue blocking infrastructure.

“On that Sunday all rural protests were still going,” Geoghegan told The Journal. “It was only Dublin and the ports that the guards cleared.

“When I left Dublin on that Sunday I called to the protest in Mullingar and Tullamore, both still as strong as ever. I discussed with the leaders, and we decided to step down as the deal that was announced was the only deal available at the time.

“We would study it and see how it went. So there was no point staying out any longer even though most people wanted to stay.”

It remains to be seen whether the government and its opponents can agree on a way to avert fuel protests in the future. For now, they can’t even agree on the past.

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