Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said blocking people is \u201cnot the way\u201d, after a fuel protester in a high-vis jacket confronted him on his way to a public event in Cork on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin was entering the newly refurbished Col\u00e1iste \u00cdosag\u00e1in in Baile Bhuirne when Gerard Murphy, a farmer and contractor from Bandon, attempted to block his way.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin did not engage, but moved past Mr Murphy to enter the new co-working facility, at which point the protester accused the Taoiseach of \u201cwalking away from the Irish people\u201d.<\/p>\n
A garda detective then prevented Mr Murphy from entering the building.<\/p>\n
Afterwards, Mr Murphy told The Echo he hadn\u2019t slept in three days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a contractor, a farmer and a truck driver, we\u2019re involved in everything, and all our businesses are on their knees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be here today. I have fields to plough, I have cows to feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at wit\u2019s end, you can hear it in my voice, we are at the point of breaking.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking to media later, Mr Martin said that throughout his life as a politician, he routinely engaged with people under pressure every day, as did other representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always try to alleviate pressures, but blocking people is not the way to do it. Every citizen is entitled to move about freely in our country,\u201d the Taoiseach said.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat has happened over the last number of days is that that essential freedom to move has been hindered, has been denied, to many, many people.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had countless anecdotes now of other people out there who are under a lot of pressure because they cannot make medical appointments, sick people, (and) people who have been delayed going to work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said the Government had been contacted by companies saying they were struggling as they could not import raw materials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis morning, I was contacted by co-ops in West Cork saying they had run out of pig feed because of the blockade in Ringaskiddy. That is not normal protesting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not satisfactory; it is not on. There are better ways and other ways to do it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach said blockades of ports, fuel depots, and of the Whitegate refinery should not happen as they were hurting ordinary people, and he called on protesters to engage with Government.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in engagement, we believe in dialogue,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are avenues and pathways to resolve this, at least to engage on this in a sensible way. I cannot for the life of me understand why the ordinary people of the country would be denied access to fuel.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it is extraordinary that the war in the Middle East did not endanger our supplies to date and it is by the actions of the protesters that supplies have now been temporarily denied and endangered,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat makes no sense and is damaging the Irish people and the Irish economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said blocking people is \u201cnot the way\u201d, after a fuel protester in a high-vis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-391366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391366","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=391366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}