A blockade outside Ireland’s only oil refinery was abandoned by demonstrators after a dramatic Garda operation amid fears the protest was about to be hijacked by the far right and other elements.<\/p>\n
The revelation came as Whitegate protest organisers admitted that a demonstration initially comprised of local hauliers, farmers, contractors and even construction officials attracted “other elements” after the dramatic human chain stand-off with Garda\u00ed on Friday.<\/p>\n
Whitegate blockade organisers said the decision to end the protest after the massive Garda enforcement operation on Saturday was taken in the interests of public safety and local welfare.<\/p>\n
“This was a peaceful protest from day one,” one organiser, who asked to be unnamed, explained.<\/p>\n
“We wanted to get out message across that we couldn’t survive in business with fuel rates going sky high – and we wanted ordinary Irish people to realise the consequences for them of soaring food prices.”<\/p>\n
“As far as I am concerned, that message was heard loud and clear. This was never about looking for trouble.<\/p>\n
“But there were people who arrived here after Friday who we were afraid did not share our goals.”<\/p>\n
Another organiser, Anthony Kelleher, said they ended the demonstration after it was suggested that some people flocking to the protest were allegedly intent on mischief.<\/p>\n
“This was a peaceful protest… when we heard that (there was a possible threat to local property) then enough was enough.”<\/p>\n
Mr Kelleher said they were “overwhelmed” with the support they received from across Ireland and that the demonstration was all about respect.<\/p>\n
He insisted protest organisers had tried to liaise positively with Garda\u00ed at all times.<\/p>\n
However, a number of people who arrived in Whitegate on Friday evening and Saturday were not associated with the original demonstration.<\/p>\n
Further, there were growing concerns amongst the local protesters that the new arrivals were intent on causing trouble and confronting Garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
A number of known far-right agitators arrived in the east Cork village from Friday – and demonstration organisers were uneasy about their intentions.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed secured full access to the Irving Oil refinery at lunchtime on Saturday after an overwhelming show of force.<\/p>\n
Pepper spray was used on a small number of people who refused to comply with Garda instructions.<\/p>\n
Three people were arrested under public order legislation.<\/p>\n
Full access to the refinery was secured by Garda\u00ed and by Saturday afternoon fleets of tankers had commenced accepting fuel loads.<\/p>\n
A large Garda presence remained in Whitegate but there were no other attempts to interfere with the movement of fuel tankers.<\/p>\n
Over 100 Garda – including several public order units from across Ireland – deployed in Whitegate where attempts to end the blockade on Friday failed after demonstrators placed a human chain across the village’s main street.<\/p>\n
A direction to the crowd was read out by a senior Garda and public order units then pushed demonstrators back from the route to be used by fuel tankers.<\/p>\n
One driver who refused to comply with Garda directions was forcibly removed from his cab.<\/p>\n
Two other drivers agreed to hand over the keys of their vehicles to Garda\u00ed so they could be moved them without damage.<\/p>\n
A water cannon used to deal with public disorder was available to Garda\u00ed though it was not deployed.<\/p>\n
The Defence Forces deployed a heavy duty recovery vehicle but again it was not required.<\/p>\n
Attempts to use the so-called “hot route” secured to the refinery by Garda\u00ed to access diesel for emergency services last Friday was frustrated by protestors creating a human chain blockade in the village.<\/p>\n
This prevented an oil lorry from passing through Garda lines and it was stranded in the middle of the village for several hours.
At one point a protestor holding a Tricolour climbed on top of the tanker.
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Protestors first blocked the entrance to the Irving Oil facility on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The major standoff erupted at 2.30pm on Friday after protestors outside the Cork refinery had allowed a limited number of tankers to refill at the facility in support of emergency services.<\/p>\n
A group of around 300 then formed a human chain across the Main Street of Whitegate village to block a third tanker from reaching the refinery access route which had been secured by Garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Facing the protestors was a line of 50 uniformed Gardai who were metres in front of the stranded tanker.<\/p>\n
The human chain was mounted minutes after it was confirmed that protestor representatives were not allowed into negotiations with Government officials.<\/p>\n
Major Garda public order units withdrew on Friday evening and protestors moved back to their initial machinery blockade outside the refinery which allowed the village\u2019s Main Street to re-open.<\/p>\n
However, a massive Garda public order operation began on Saturday morning to re-open access to the refinery – with over 100 officers deployed and all routes into Whitegate being monitored.<\/p>\n
Garda reinforcements were brought by bus to east Cork from all over Munster.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach Michael Martin slated the blockade of the refinery as \u2018an outage\u2019 and \u2018national sabotage.\u2019<\/p>\n
Ralph Riegel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blockade outside Ireland’s only oil refinery was abandoned by demonstrators after a dramatic Garda operation amid fears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25746,24119,3774,61,60,15552,22479,1843,43,6785,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-394832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-darragh-obrien","9":"tag-eavan-murray","10":"tag-fionnan-sheahan","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-maeve-mctaggart","14":"tag-martin-heydon","15":"tag-micheal-martin","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-ralph-riegel","18":"tag-simon-harris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394832","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=394832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}