Mooney on Politics Podcast – script notes for No Security Solutions to Political Problems episode – April 12

This morning, the Sunday Independent ran a poll asking about support for the protesters and put it at around 58%, and support for the government at 38%. It asked who is blamed most for the problem and it seems the government is definitely in a clear first spot. When it asked what the solution was, it seemed to be that the government must climb down.

What struck me about that poll is it very much mirrors the government satisfaction/dissatisfaction rating at the moment: 60% of people are dissatisfied with the government, 30% satisfied; 60% of people support the protesters, 38% support the government. The figures are within the margin. So it tells you that, as unpopular as the protest is – and I genuinely do believe the protest is unpopular – people do see that maybe the protesters, not so much have a case, but they can understand why the protesters are doing it.

They:

• Don’t like the tactics

• Don’t like how it’s been carried out

• Don’t like Dublin being closed off

• Don’t like the targeting of other citizens

• Don’t like the ignoring of the Gardaí

I think the Gardaí will emerge enhanced by this whole situation.

But all of this comes down to an old political truism, and I think it’s a kind of an Irish political truism, and it’s certainly one that we talked about a lot in terms of the Good Friday Agreement and the process around that. And it’s this: there are no security solutions to political problems.

While the closing off of Whitegate Refinery and the closing off of O’Connell Street were both security issues – and indeed the closing off or blocking of any major roadway, be it the M50, the N11, the N7, be it Foynes, Galway, wherever – they are security issues. But at the back of this was a political problem. And the political problem was the perception by rural communities that they were being excluded from a package of measures.

How do I know this is the case? It’s because several Fianna Fáil TDs were pointing this out for almost a month, indeed if not longer. I would point you in particular to the letter written to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, the Minister for Energy and the Minister for Agriculture, by the former town councillor Seán O’Fearghail. As far as I’m aware, Seán sent the letter on the 26th of March.

The letter set out, and the letter asked, why was the agri sector specifically being excluded from the package of measures? Now, I know the government will say that they weren’t being specifically excluded, but Seán was making the case that they were being excluded, and there was a perception among the agricultural community, and certainly in the rural community and the economy that supports rural Irish communities, that they were not being included in the package of measures, that this was benefiting other people.

There’s a recognition that the oil price is outside of the government’s control. There’s a recognition that this is a global situation. What’s happening in Iran is not something that’s in the government’s control by any stretch of the imagination. But as an open economy, what happens in the world hits us harder. If the government was announcing a package of 250 million for measures to alleviate the results of this and appeared to be leaving out a certain sector, that was the point that Seán was making. He had flagged it up to the government.

The government’s response in the intervening three weeks was to “monitor the situation”. What happened last Tuesday is that the protests took over, and they have now heightened it on to the political agenda.

While the government was right to have security measures, and the government was right to say, “look, we’re this far and no further”, the government was right to say:

• You cannot close off the rest of the country

• You cannot stop oil supplies coming in

• You cannot stop petrol forecourts being restocked and refuelled

Equally, the government should say: listen, we see that you have a problem and we need to address it.

What happened was we saw the security element of the solution, but we did not see the political element of it. The political element was one that was trying to catch up with things that they were warned about three weeks ago.

So the bottom line in my take on the protests – and I don’t support the protests – is that I think the protesters were ill-advised, ill-judged. I think the vast majority of the people on the protest are good people who genuinely do feel at the pin of the collar, do feel frustration and do feel angry with the system.

I think there is a small element – certainly the online element – that is very, very dubious, very suspect. One of the reasons I know that is that, having got into a row with a few of them last Monday into Tuesday morning, suddenly I found that my Twitter account was hijacked and gone and wiped, and I didn’t get it back until well into Wednesday. I’m not blaming anyone in particular for that, certainly not, and I don’t think there was anyone on this island who was responsible for that. But there are clearly other actors at play here and we’d be naive to believe otherwise.

But that is not an excuse for not addressing an issue that was flagged weeks, if not months, ago by a succession of Fianna Fáil backbench TDs and Fine Gael TDs as well. I just happen to be more aware of what the Fianna Fáil ones are doing.

I think that points to a major problem within the government. It points to something we’ve been saying for a long time: that this government is politically out of touch, it is politically distant. There is some excuse on the Fine Gael side because they’ve been in government since 2011 and are now well within the bubble. For Fianna Fáil and for the Fianna Fáil leadership, there is no excuse.

By the way, I’m not ring-fencing this just to the Taoiseach or to the Tánaiste or to the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Public Expenditure or the Minister for Energy. I think this applies to everyone around the Cabinet table and at the junior ministerial rank as well.

So that’s where I think we stand at the moment. I’ll come back to this in a few days’ time because I think the political fallout will be considerable. I think the government’s popularity can only go one way at the moment, and that’s downwards. Although the Gardaí have effectively dealt with this, I don’t think the government can claim credit for that, and I don’t think the government will get bonus points for that.

I think we are in a very febrile political atmosphere, and I’m not too sure that this government could withstand too many more political crises or shocks like this. Unfortunately, given what’s happening in Iran, given what’s happening in the world, given that we’re possibly facing into a deep recession, a global recession that will hurt us, does the government have the bandwidth to deal with it? Indeed, does the government, at the best of times, have the bandwidth? I think that’s a major question to ask.

Here is some of the text from that letter sent by Deputy Sean O Fearghail in March, 2026:

I write to acknowledge the Government’s initiative in providing the recently announced energy supports. While not everybody who will benefit are content with the levels of support being given, it’s fair to say that the Government has demonstrated prudence and a clear willingness to revisit the situation if the Iranian crisis worsens or becomes even more protracted.

The failure however, to meaningfully address the massive increase in the cost of Agri-Diesel is a serious mistake, and needs to be rectified immediately: otherwise, the increased costs will have a seriously negative and damaging impact on our vital Agri sector.

This omission, coming as it does in the aftermath of the Bord Bia controversy where many farmers throughout the Country were worked into a state of incandescent rage, serves only to now further infuriate an already deeply unhappy sector of our economy.

As stated, in my opinion, the omission of significant Agri supports is unwise and unfair.

The failure to act will also have major political ramifications. The antipathy amongst farmers directed towards Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is unlike anything I have ever witnessed in the past, and if not addressed immediately, will do lasting and perhaps irreparable damage to previously good relations.