{"id":404542,"date":"2026-04-18T04:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T04:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/404542\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T04:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T04:25:12","slug":"irish-businesses-count-the-cost-of-fuel-protests-and-blockades-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/404542\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish businesses count the cost of fuel protests and blockades \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Business had already been \u201ctough\u201d for Rebecca Harrison even before last week\u2019s fuel protests<\/a> knocked about 40 per cent off her turnover during what should have been a very busy week at her boutique and wellness centre in Co Wicklow.<\/p>\n

Fishers of Newtownmountkennedy is a family-owned boutique that dates back to 1979. It has grown from a small country-clothing outfitter to a hub of retail, food and wellness activity, with a men\u2019s wear shop, ladies boutique, gifts, homeware and accessories departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very much a destination sort of a business,\u201d Harrison says. \u201cOur customers generally travel to us from the surrounding area. We have a lot of people coming down from south Dublin and from the likes of Wicklow, Wexford, Kildare and Kilkenny.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusiness has been tough at the moment anyway, which is an underlying thing for everybody with the global situation. People are nervous, don\u2019t have as much money, and are holding on to what they do have.\u201d<\/p>\n

The protests across Ireland, which lasted for seven days, caused enormous traffic disruption on some national routes as hauliers and agricultural contractors began a series of demonstrations that grew from slow-moving convoys to the blockading of roads and fuel depots.<\/p>\n

Those blockades were broken up by garda\u00ed last weekend at O\u2019Connell Street in Dublin, Foynes Port in Co Limerick, Whitegate oil refinery in Co Cork and Rosslare Harbour in Co Wexford. Subsequent protests on Monday were largely confined to road blockages.<\/p>\n

While sympathetic to the cause of the protests, Harrison says they had a significant effect on her business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were quite badly affected by the blockade,\u201d she says. \u201cThere were three blockages on the N11 quite close to us where people were being routed off the road and then back on further down so there were a lot of tailbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat certainly had a significant impact on us on those days. The meeting point on the N11 for the initial convoy was just south of us here so we had an increased police presence around us on that morning as well, as the trucks and tractors made their way into Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were very quiet on that initial day and then on other days there were diversions around the place and people either couldn\u2019t get to us or gave up trying to get to us because it was taking too long. <\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have to drive to us and we noticed decreased traffic in terms of customers coming to the store from further afield. There were definitely people who didn\u2019t bother trying in the first place and others who turned back.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says numbers were \u201cway down\u201d on what was a \u201ckey weekend\u201d around the Easter holidays, with people in \u201choliday mode\u201d whereby they might have had time to go to the shops and spend. \u201cSo what should have been a very busy time became a very, very quiet one,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

On a positive note, Harrison noticed more local people \u201cpopping in\u201d because they couldn\u2019t go anywhere else. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey were working from home and hadn\u2019t made their way into Dublin or their offices wherever they were located,\u201d she says. \u201cBut it was a different kind of customer with a different type of budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison says the recent increase in fuel prices has also had an effect on her own bottom line. \u201cOur margin is almost gone completely,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the increases are affecting everyone, if you\u2019ve got a better margin because you\u2019re a bigger company and able to buy more, you get better discounts. My point is this is hitting smaller businesses harder.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur location is wonderful but we\u2019re also in a small town and if a business like ours closes \u2013 and the risk is higher now than it has been in a number of years \u2013 no multinational is going to come in and open here so there will be a void there in the town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrison adds there ought to have been \u201ca swifter resolution\u201d to the situation. \u201cIt shouldn\u2019t have taken most of the week,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t think it was necessary for it to have lasted that long, both in terms of the response and the protests themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jenny Johnston, chief executive of Azure Communications in Damastown in Dublin, says the biggest impact on her business was in getting her 17 staff and deliveries \u201cin and out of the building\u201d. The business offers printing, packaging and marketing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of our staff were just delayed but others couldn\u2019t get in at all,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s all very well for office or admin staff who can work from home, but many of them operate machinery and they need to be in the building to do their job. That was a bit troublesome.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one of the days in particular, I had a meeting in the morning and went to get on to the M50 to travel into the office, and the M50 was closed at that point.<\/p>\n

\"JennyJenny Johnston, chief executive of Azure Communications. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really things like that, or not being able to get deliveries in and production work out. We print and manufacture so we need a lot of paper supplies. We produce booklets and anything basically with ink on paper. That basically all stopped for a couple of days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were producing work for customers but we literally just could not get it out to them. Most of our customers were aware of what was happening and were fairly understanding, but I\u2019d say if it had have gone on any longer, we would have felt some backlash from customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds sentiment from customers was \u201cdefinitely down\u201d and there were \u201ca few really slow days\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n

Small Firms Association<\/a> director David Broderick said his members, particularly in the retail and hospitality sector, reported a \u201cnoticeable drop in footfall and business activity\u201d after the protests began. <\/p>\n

\u201cAny nationwide decline in economic activity has a disproportionate financial impact on small, indigenous businesses,\u201d he said. \u201cCoupled with crippling fuel costs, this crisis could not have come at a worse time for small businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Ibec <\/a>said the \u201cunprecedented nature of what unfolded\u201d means it may take \u201cdays or even weeks to fully assess the damage caused\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we know many businesses across essential supply chains are working tirelessly to get supply chains back up and running to full capacity as well as managing the backlog,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe welcome that the protests have been cleared and commend the efforts of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na and others in bringing the protests to an end. <\/p>\n

\u201cTogether with Government and others, we will also need to review lessons that will need to be taken from the blockades of fuel depots, ports and other critical infrastructure to ensure that essential supply chains cannot be shut down in this manner through illegal protest.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, for Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association chief executive, Vincent Jennings, it is \u201cclear this international crisis will not blow over and we will continue to see high wholesale prices for all fuel products for the foreseeable future\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we ran out of fuel, it led to much-reduced business in our stores,\u201d he adds. \u201cWhat has been noticeable is the increase in sales of solid fuel products, unsurprising given the huge jump in kerosene prices.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Business had already been \u201ctough\u201d for Rebecca Harrison even before last week\u2019s fuel protests knocked about 40 per…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[171749,4105,61,60,43,126406],"class_list":["post-404542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-fuel-protests","tag-ibec","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-small-firms-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404542","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=404542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}