{"id":632431,"date":"2026-09-22T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632431\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:42:08","slug":"desperate-times-make-desperate-people-hauliers-say-they-cannot-sustain-fuel-price-hikes-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/632431\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Desperate times make desperate people\u2019: Hauliers say they \u2018cannot sustain\u2019 fuel price hikes \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hauliers warned they \u201ccannot sustain\u201d current fuel prices and called for the retention of fuel supports, ahead of a meeting with Minister for Finance Simon Harris<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Ger Hyland, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association<\/a>, said his members are now desperate and have very little to lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cDesperate times make desperate people,\u201d he added when asked if his members were going to take to the roads again to protest at<\/a> the increasing costs of transport fuel.<\/p>\n

In April this year, convoys of trucks, tractors and coaches brought traffic to a standstill in more than 25 towns and cities across the country in protest at rising fuel costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of our members out there at the present time and they have very little else to lose,\u201d Hyland told Newstalk Breakfast.<\/p>\n

Representatives of the association are due to meet Harris today to talk about the budget<\/a> and fuel prices. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Budget 2027 update: From income tax to child benefit \u2013 here\u2019s what we know so farOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The price of diesel was now \u201cedging close\u201d to \u20ac2.20 a litre, Hyland said. \u201cNever before has it been seen at this level in Ireland. Never before have our members been under so much pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just simply can\u2019t afford diesel. Once diesel goes over the \u20ac1.90 mark it becomes mostly unviable for our industry.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hyland said that any support for the transport community was support for the Irish economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that we have in this country, whether we take it off the island or on to the island, it comes on the back of a truck. If the transport industry is supported it feeds in to keeping inflation down. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo the fuel supports need to remain in place until such time as there is some sort of a workable solution got in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

Government support earlier in the year, while welcome, had not been all that was required but did help to keep the haulage industry viable, he said. <\/p>\n

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The mood in the transport sector at present was one of fear, Hyland added. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese people have put a lifetime into building their businesses. Our members they just cannot sustain it. They\u2019re seeing their businesses evaporating in front of their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said 65c of every euro spent on fuel went back to the Government in the form of tax. <\/p>\n

Hyland acknowledged the sector could not achieve everything it wanted in negotiations with the Government but that it remained open to a \u201cviable opportunity of getting some support\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hauliers warned they \u201ccannot sustain\u201d current fuel prices and called for the retention of fuel supports, ahead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5168,72,171749,61,60,42818,70],"class_list":["post-632431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-budget","tag-business","tag-fuel-protests","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-road-haulage-association","tag-simon-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632431","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=632431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}