Five hours at the table

Tom Murphy was at the table when the Government met stakeholders last month during the ongoing and controversial fuel protest. He shares his experience, and tells us what changes he would make to ensure a repeat situation is averted.

As the fuel protests gathered momentum, there is no doubt they had public support, including many of my friends and relatives. It was simple, they wanted the price of fuel to be reduced to the price they paid before the conflict in Iran. In their minds, the Government was to blame. Simple. And that is the predicament the Government found itself in. It was quick to throw quarter of a billion euro at keeping pump prices down for the general public but didn’t have a plan or even a notion on measures needed to help farmers, agricultural contractors, hauliers and many other sectors badly affected by the fuel crisis. There was no contingency plan to deal with such an emergency – and that must be addressed.

No plan? 

In our democracy, the Civil Service runs the country. Yes, politicians set policies, but ministers and TDs come and go. Government departments must have plans in place to deal with any worst-case scenario that comes under their remit, but neither the civil service nor the politicians seemed to have anticipated such a scenario. Since February 28, the world and its mother have been following events in the Middle East and the disruption of the oil supply to world markets by President Trump’s actions against Iran. So, the question is why did it take the Irish Government six weeks to come up with a plan, particularly when within three weeks of the conflict, stakeholders were beating a path to meet with ministers? That delay lost them every ounce of credibility with the public and led to the streets being taken over by protesters, who not only caused havoc for the general public but upped the campaign to block Whitegate and other fuel distribution depots in Galway, Limerick and Cork. The irony of the blockades was that the protesters would have run out of fuel themselves if the Gardaí had not removed them.
The added problem is that unlike other EU countries Ireland does not have a large national fuel reserve. We rely, as do retail stations, on ‘just-in-time delivery’. Not holding large amounts of fuel can be a big money saver, but it is also an Achilles heel as we saw. With no fuel being allowed out of Whitegate, ships delivering oil were anchored offshore and threatening to go elsewhere with their cargo, as were ships bringing in fertiliser. That alone forced the Government to act and have the blockade removed.

PAC at the table

I received an invitation from the Government, along with other stakeholders, to attend a meeting of the National Emergency Coordination Group (NECG) on April 10. We gathered at 2pm and I hoped we were going to hear a comprehensive Government plan to help various sectors – farming, transport, agricultural contractors, and business. I hoped we would have an update to bring back to our members.
Chairing the meeting was Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon alongside Minister for Transport, Darragh O’Brien. There were also five ministers of State present or on Zoom. The meeting started with senior civil servants outlining the overall situation with regards to the critical reserves the country held and how long they would last, and what effect the continuing conflict would have on exports. Each stakeholder was invited to have their say, with most reiterating what their sector needed, and all asking what the Government was going to offer. The reply was that they would have something shortly, but nothing until the blockades were lifted. My clear understanding was that the ministers were saying that because they wanted the farming organisations to condemn the blockades.
When my turn came, I protested that by having nothing to give us today to bring to our membership, the Government was undermining all the stakeholders around the table. To say there would be no help until the blockades were removed, was unacceptable. I said the Government needed to enforce the law and remove the blockades to allow movement from Whitegate and distribution centres to enable ships to dock and fuel to be distributed.

Nothing on the table 

A five-hour meeting ended with nothing on the table. I was annoyed and frustrated. The meeting resumed the next day but still, nothing. Before the meeting finished, we had a pep talk from all the ministers of State – including Michael Healy-Rae, who resigned his post in a blaze of publicity just a few days later – imploring everyone to support the Government. There is no doubt the country was facing a crisis of unbelievable magnitude, and I don’t use these words lightly. Everyone seemed to have a solution – remove carbon tax and other levies. But it’s not as simple as that! What about the 55,000 farmers who benefit from the money raised from the carbon tax for environmental projects?

Takeaways 

What do I take from this crisis, from which there will be long term repercussions? We were badly let down by the absence of leadership from the Civil Service who had no plan. Our politicians took far too long to get a grip on the situation. Some politicians seemed more interested in their politcal careers than to tell the the blockaders to protest away from critical centres that are the lifeline for the nation. Some of the stakeholders wouldn’t call out their members who were on the protest. We were let down by the vocal ‘leaders’ of the protest who had no coherent plan but used all the tactics of the soapbox orator for their moment in the spotlight. I wonder would my friends and relatives and the public have supported the blockade when they had no fuel for their car, no milk in the fridge, and empty supermarket shelves?

Are we powerless?

As I sat in that meeting room, looking around the table at the stakeholders who keep food on our table, who were outnumbered by ministers, who themselves were outnumbered by civil servants, I realised how utterly powerless we were. Thirty-five days into the war in Iran and there was no coherent plan. If I was sitting at the cabinet table, albeit after the event, I would demand an inquiry, not by the Civil Service but by someone from the judiciary. They would have the power to compel individuals to comply with the inquiry, and to reach into every Government department to ask why there were no emergency plans in place. My second action would be to appoint a minister for emergency planning at cabinet rank, who would have the power to assess all Government departments for potential national risk and ensure that plans for the security of national resources are in place, and regularly updated.