Paul Hosford: Government fights back with €505m spend after social media posts fuel national crisis

Government unleashes €505m of public funds to quell protests and ward off Sinn Féin no-confidence motion 

In a scene redolent of the worst days of the covid pandemic, Tánaiste Simon Harris, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, and junior minister Seán Canney outlined a package that they hope will quell the fuel price protests. Picture: Cillian Sherlock/PA

What started as a few vague posts on social media has, a week later, become a political fallout which leaves the Government facing a no-confidence motion.

How it ended up this way will be picked apart in the coming days, but for now the Government has unleashed €505m of public funds in a bid to ward off Sinn Féin’s motion aiming to topple it.

At a Sunday evening press conference at Government Buildings — which carried too many of the hallmarks of the covid pandemic’s worst days — Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris, and junior minister and leader of the independent group in government Sean Canney outlined a package that they hope will quell the protests and aid businesses and motorists.

At its centre is a postponement of a rise in the carbon tax along with further cuts to excise on fuels and a scheme for green diesel intensive businesses.

After a week free of Dáil responsibilities was shattered by the blockading first of Dublin City’s main thoroughfare O’Connell St and latterly fuel depots and the country’s only oil refinery at Whitegate in Cork, ministers sat down with representative groups in a bid to hammer out the details of the scheme announced on Sunday evening.

A slow-moving response at the beginning of the week ended with half a billion euro being deployed on top of a €250m commitment made just weeks ago. But as Cabinet prepared to meet, the political pressure was being turned up by the opposition, with Sinn Féin first out of the traps.

In a statement, party leader Mary Lou McDonald said Sinn Féin TDs and senators met on Sunday morning and “will be moving a motion of no confidence in the government”.

“The actions of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Independents have been disastrous,” she said. “They have lost the confidence of the public. It is clear that they still are not listening and do not accept the scale of this fuel and cost-of-living crisis.”

She pre-emptively criticised the Government package saying that “it will be more of the same half measures from them this evening. This is unacceptable. We need the maximum reductions now, as proposed by Sinn Féin weeks ago.”

The Social Democrats, People Before Profit, and Independent Ireland have said they will back the motion, while Labour and the Greens — while heavily criticising the Government — said they would consider the text before making a decision, though are expected to vote with Sinn Féin.

While the Government has the numbers to ward off the motion, attention swiftly turned to the cohort of independents who form part of the coalition, with Mr Canney swift to point out that he, Noel Grealish, and Michael Healy Rae had all formed part of the ministerial cohort who had spoken to representative bodies over the weekend, implying that their support was secure. 

Whether that goes for the non-ministerial independents will decide much of the mood of the coming days.

At the podium under Government Buildings, Mr Martin and Mr Harris were more strident than they had been all week, hitting out at the “unelected, self-appointed spokespeople” who led the blockades, and opposition TDs who supported them.

But in all of the opposition focus on fuel prices, it was lost that the Government had overseen the ceding of national critical infrastructure to the point that it could take a week and a half for petrol stations to be back to normal.

While the Government has moved on prices and that may help in the short-term, the latter question will linger for far longer.

• Paul Hosford, Acting Political Editor