{"id":352790,"date":"2026-03-18T15:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/352790\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:39:10","slug":"hauliers-warn-of-immediate-protests-if-government-does-not-take-action-on-fuel-prices-at-crunch-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/352790\/","title":{"rendered":"Hauliers warn of \u2018immediate protests\u2019 if Government does not take action on fuel prices at crunch meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) president is set to be meet with Transport Minister Darragh O\u2019Brien on Thursday morning to discuss \u201cemergency measures\u201d for reducing fuel costs.<\/p>\n

The meeting comes amidst calls for the Government to take action on rising fuel prices due to the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Fuel prices have risen above \u20ac2 per litre in many forecourts across the country.<\/p>\n

A protest scheduled for Tuesday, March 10 was called off by hauliers to allow for talks to take place between Mr O\u2019Brien and IRHA president Ger Hyland.<\/p>\n

Hauliers said last week that the conflict in the Middle East highlighted dysfunction in Ireland\u2019s fuel market, with the Government taking more than 65pc of the price of a litre of petrol and more than 60pc of the price of a litre of diesel.<\/p>\n

\"File<\/p>\n

File image of a haulier protest in Dublin.<\/p>\n

News in 90 seconds – March 18 <\/p>\n

They have called for a temporary suspension of the carbon tax hike and for the toll on the M50 to be removed for hauliers and motorists.<\/p>\n

The IRHA has said the haulage industry \u201ccannot be fobbed off with empty promises\u201d ahead of the meeting with Mr O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

“Unless we leave that meeting with concrete and immediate proposals to reduce the cost of fuel, hauliers will be left with no choice but to launch immediate protest actions. Our members are ready,\u201d Mr Hyland said.<\/p>\n

Mr Hyland said haulage operators will not be able to continue to absorb rising costs without \u201curgent\u201d intervention from the Government to reduce the tax burden on fuel.<\/p>\n

\u201cHauliers are looking for decisive action \u2013 not warm words \u2013 and we will be making that position very clear when we meet the Minister tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without action on fuel prices, hauliers have said there could be disruption to supply chain, higher prices at supermarkets and members of the haulage industry going out of business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen transport costs go up, groceries, clothes, building materials and everything in between goes up in price,\u201d Mr Hyland added.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrippling fuel costs are just the latest escalating cost to follow higher tolls, new charges at Dublin Port and a host of other taxes and charges that this government has imposed on small businesses across rural Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment are asleep at the wheel and not listening to people who put them in power.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) president is set to be meet with Transport Minister Darragh O\u2019Brien on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,15763,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-352790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-darragh-nolan","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}