{"id":398763,"date":"2026-04-14T23:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398763\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T23:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T23:38:14","slug":"michael-healy-rae-resigns-after-fuel-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/398763\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Healy-Rae resigns after fuel protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Kerry TD and outgoing junior agriculture minister hit out at his former Government colleagues and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> over the handling of fuel protests<\/a>, telling the D\u00e1il that Mr Martin “should have listened” and that “this Government has let the people of Ireland down”.<\/p>\n

Government sources said they had been blindsided by Mr Healy-Rae’s decision. A spokesperson for the Taoiseach confirmed there had been no prior warning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Several senior ministers told the Irish Examiner\u00a0they had no indication the resignation was coming and one minister suggested it was a \u201crash decision\u201d that was only made on the day. <\/p>\n

Others speculated that Mr Martin would have been pushed to sack Mr Healy-Rae if his brother Danny had voted against the Government in the motion.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters outside Leinster House after his departure, Mr Healy-Rae said he had been \u201cmulling\u201d over his decision to resign in recent days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always thought I was a voice of Ireland, rural Ireland, definitely a voice for Kerry. I felt this was the right decision to make, to stand with the people of Kerry and not to be part of a Government that I wasn\u2019t happy with,\u201d Mr Healy-Rae said.<\/p>\n

\n At the end of the day, I\u2019ve made this decision and I\u2019m standing true to the people that elected me in the first instance.\n <\/p>\n

Mr Healy-Rae said he did not regret going into Government and there was \u201cnothing personal\u201d in his decision to resign.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said he had \u201cgrave reservations\u201d about the leadership of Mr Martin. On the \u20ac505m package<\/a> of measures, which he helped negotiate, Mr Healy-Rae said it should have been \u201ca lot more\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Healy-Rae said he and his brother Danny always \u201cgauge\u201d what is right and it was a decision they needed to make \u201con behalf of the people that are our bosses\u201d. He rejected any assertions that he was forced into the decision by his brother.<\/p>\n

The Government won the motion: 92 TDs voted confidence in the Government while 78 voted no confidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said during the debate that “we need to talk about the huge impact of rising oil prices” but also discuss protecting jobs and getting Ireland through a period of international turmoil.<\/p>\n

He said the immediate focus has to be oil prices.<\/p>\n

“The opposition claims the Government has done nothing…this is manifestly untrue,” he said, adding that the rise in prices is little to do with his Government, but rather to do with the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

In fiery exchanges, Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald said the Government “lacks empathy” and that “its time is up”.<\/p>\n

Ms McDonald criticised the Government for allowing the D\u00e1il to rise for 20 days over Easter. She wrote to Mr Martin asking for the D\u00e1il to reconvene but he “ignored me because you know your time is up”.<\/p>\n

“You demeaned peaceful protesters… because you decided it was beneath you,” she said.<\/p>\n

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said the cost-of-living crisis did not emerge six weeks ago when US president Donald Trump launched a war in Iran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been growing and growing for years, and this Government has had the resources to provide meaningful support,\u201d Ms Cairns said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Kerry TD and outgoing junior agriculture minister hit out at his former Government colleagues and Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24622,63615,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-398763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-the-healy-raes","9":"tag-fuel-prices","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398763","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=398763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}