Taoiseach 'shows zero' respect' after using back entrance to avoid fuel protesters in Macroom 

They said the reason why they are protesting against rising fuel costs is so families won’t have to pay €5 for a loaf of bread

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been accused of showing "zero" respect for protesters after he entered an industrial estate in Macroom through a back entrance to avoid them.

They claimed they're are people who are putting food on the table and the reason why they are protesting against rising fuel costs is so families won’t have to pay €5 for a loaf of bread.

More than 20 men gathered this morning outside the entrance to the IDA industrial estate in Macroom, where Micheál Martin was attending the opening of an €8m plant extension by Cygnum, a firm specialising in the manufacture of timber frame structures.

Gearóid Crowley, who described himself as “an extremely small contractor, a one-man operation” from Bantry, said the fact that Mr Martin had entered the estate by a rear gate, avoiding the protest, was a mark of the respect he had for the protesters, “which is zero”.

Mr Crowley said that like many contractors, his fuel bill had soared in recent weeks and he is asking the Government for help.

“My fuel bill is getting out of control and it’s getting hard to make ends meet."

He said they are not asking for hand-outs, but just a little bit of help, in the short term, until the conflict will dissipate and they can get back on their feet.

“We are the people who put the food on the table. The farmers that are here are the people that grow the food. The hauliers are the people that bring your food to the market for you, so you have the convenience of going in and picking it off the shelf.” 

He said he spoke in recent days to a small contractor who has “five tractors, a silage harvester, and a pike on the pit”.

“That man is facing this summer, if this is not brought under control, an extra €1,500 per day in his fuel bill,” he said.

“He can’t absorb that, he is going to have to pass that on, and if he passes that on, that knock-on effect is going to go down the line, and that’s going to end up in the shops, on the shelves, in the price of food.

“What we are trying to say to the public is you are not going to notice this now, but come September, October, November, you’ll all be standing there wondering you’re paying €5 for a loaf of bread, and this is where it ends."

Mr Crowley said farmers, contractors, and hauliers are protesting for the entire country, “not just to line our own pockets, it’s nothing to do with that”.

“It’s surviving, keeping our businesses afloat so that we can continue to produce food at an affordable level for the public, plain and simple.” 

He said that protesters were committed to behaving peacefully, and he rejected what he called false reports of ambulances and fire services being blocked by pickets, which he said had not happened.

“When this protest kicked off on Tuesday morning, I drove from Bantry to Cork to pick up my daughter from the hospital. I got in there with no problem.

“The disruption that they’re saying is being caused is not being caused. That is BS.”