Police remove fuel protesters from Dublin center as disruption over soaring costs continues

LONDON (AP) — Police broke up a blockade in the center of Dublin by fuel protesters who have brought much of Ireland to a standstill during the past week as the government prepared on Sunday to approve cost-cutting measures they hope will end six days of disruption over soaring costs at the pump.

As tractors and trucks that had blocked O’Connell Street were rolling out of the capital, police on the other side of the country clashed with demonstrators as they cleared a protest at the Galway docks after a military vehicle was used to knock down a makeshift barrier.

Protests were diminishing Sunday amid a police crackdown, but they caused chaos as blockades at Ireland’s only oil refinery, a major port and several vital depots prevented tanker trucks from delivering fuel to service stations and many gas pumps ran dry. Slow-moving convoys of vehicles also caused traffic jams on major highways.

Police began breaking up the protests Saturday, using pepper spray to help clear people from the Whitegate refinery in County Cork and vowing to remove others who were endangering critical infrastructure and public safety because gas shortages could prevent response by emergency services.

“They are not a legitimate form of protest,” Irish police Commissioner Justin Kelly said on Saturday. “We gave the blockaders fair warning that we were moving to enforcement and they choose to ignore it and continue to hold the country to ransom.”

But a farmer who has become a spokesman for the group in Dublin said he was angry their peaceful protest had been “ambushed” by an army of officers overnight.

Christopher Duffy said police threatened to tow their expensive vehicles and that could damage the machines.

“So we have no choice,” he said. “Financially we have to move the vehicles.”

Protests began Tuesday and have grown as word spread on social media, with truckers, farmers, and taxi and bus operators taking part and calling for help — such as price caps or tax cuts — to bring down fuel costs they say will drive people out of business.

Government officials, who had already introduced measures to ease the burden of price rises two weeks ago, have been baffled over the rationale behind the protests because the global price spike is due to the conflict in the Middle East that has restricted oil exports.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin called the actions “illogical” and said the country was on the brink of turning tankers away at ports and losing its oil supply.

Protesters at a fuel depot in County Limerick voted to end their action Sunday and demonstrators at Rosslare Europort in Wexford agreed to begin letting trucks leave the port that is jammed with cargo that couldn’t be moved.

Neilus O’Connor, an agricultural contractor, said they had made their point at the Foynes depot.

“It’s just a pity that we had to escalate a protest to this level to bring our government to the table to get fairness for every working person around this country,” O’Connor told national broadcaster RTE.

More than a third of gas pumps had run dry by Saturday, but the reopening of the refinery and the removal of roadblocks at fuel depots was expected to begin reversing the shortage, though it could take up to 10 days to fully recover, Fuels for Ireland chief executive Kevin McPartlan said.

The government called a rare Sunday Cabinet meeting to discuss a measure to help reduce the cost of gas and diesel, though it was not clear if it would be enough to halt the protest movement.

Other parties have been critical of the government’s handling of the crisis and Sinn Fein, the largest opposition party, said it would call for a no-confidence vote in the coalition government. Holly Cairns of the Social Democrats said her party would support the vote.

“They have lost the confidence of the public,” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said. “It is clear that they still are not listening and do not accept the scale of this fuel and cost-of-living crisis.”