Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has returned from holiday to take charge of the national policing response to the fuel protest crisis.<\/p>\n
The Irish Examiner understands the garda boss had gone on a pre-booked holiday with his family before the protests began.<\/p>\n
It is understood he was in regular contact with senior management while making arrangements to return to Ireland.<\/p>\n
The approach of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na from the outset has been to adopt a low key response, focusing on local garda\u00ed engaging with local protestors and their leaders.<\/p>\n
This has been particularly important in relation to securing cooperation, or agreement, on accessing key critical infrastructure, such as the fuel depots at Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork, Foynes Port, Co Limerick, and Galway Port.<\/p>\n
Garda sources said they thought they had an agreement with local leaders at Whitegate to allow trucks in and out but this appears to have changed during Friday with protestors refusing to allow any more trucks in.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed appear to have had better cooperation with protestors in Foynes and also Rosslare Port.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about your local garda\u00ed talking to local people protesting and trying to develop a relationship and keep the dialogue open,\u201d a senior garda source said. \u201cThis is against the backdrop of political announcements of ‘bringing in the Army’, which did not help matters at all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The source said garda\u00ed appealed to protestors to leave the likes of fertiliser and key chemicals in and then to try and build on that.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the issues is some of the local leaders are more reasonable that others,\u201d the source said. \u201cSome people have been very difficult to engage with.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another senior source said: \u201cIt\u2019s one thing having convoys of trucks doing go-slows on roads and motorways or parking up vehicles on roads, but once you start blockading supply routes in the country, that\u2019s different.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they decide to escalate things, going back on agreements, and blockading completely, they are doubling down and we\u2019ll have to respond.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
A number of Garda sources admit they face a very difficult challenge in trying to physically move parked up JCBs and articulated trucks. It is thought that commercial operators with such equipment may be very reluctant to assist garda\u00ed, given their close business relationships with agricultural contractors and hauliers.<\/p>\n
Sources are hoping that political talks, perhaps through independent intermediaries, will find a breakthrough over the weekend, when the size of protests may swell with family members joining in.<\/p>\n
Traffic will increase significantly on Monday with schools back from the Easter break, which is likely to add further pressure on people and politicians.<\/p>\n
So far Dublin Port has escaped being targeted with protests concentrated on O\u2019Connell Bridge and the M50.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Munster and the West being hardest hit, at the moment,\u201d one senior source said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has returned from holiday to take charge of the national policing response to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[63615,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-392270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-fuel-prices","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392270","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=392270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}