![\"Liam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/00244a56-614.jpg\"\/)
\nLiam says barrels of oil, servicing machines and wearing parts have doubled in price<\/p>\n
In a field in Mitchelstown Co Cork, Liam Richardson is hard at it, planting spring barley.<\/p>\n
An agriculture contractor, he’s been in business, employing four others, for a decade and says things are getting harder each year, significantly so when it comes to the price of fuel he says.<\/p>\n
The tractor he\u2019s driving, uses around 250 litres of diesel daily for this work.<\/p>\n
“This time last year it was costing me \u20ac220 to run it for the day and it\u2019s now costing \u20ac335 to run it for the day. That’s the difference,” he says.<\/p>\n
He speaks about paying 96 cent per litre a year ago, but those days now seem a long way off, saying this morning, he paid \u20ac1.34.<\/p>\n
“Fuel is probably costing me 40% more operating at the moment than it was this time last year. It\u2019s having a huge impact. It\u2019s very hard to charge it on to already struggling customers who can’t actually pay that extra money. They don’t have it on their side either.”<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not just the rising price of diesel that\u2019s causing concern, everything else is seemingly up too he says.<\/p>\n
“The cost of everything – barrels of oil, servicing the machines, wearing parts, everything has completely doubled.”<\/p>\n
\nLiam says barrels of oil, servicing machines and wearing parts have doubled in price<\/p>\n
Liam took part in the fuel protests earlier this month.<\/p>\n
“I went out of sheer frustration. We felt nobody was listening to us. The groups that were representing, we feel maybe they didn’t represent us as good as they should have, and we felt the Government just wasn’t listening to us, which is very disappointing, really.”<\/p>\n