National security and fuel unrest
After a procedural call, a Senator warned that fuel prices and regional tensions could trigger further unrest and called for long-delayed publication of the national security strategy.
Yesterday, I spoke about the protests and blockades that occurred over the last couple of weeks. Both the Iranians and the United States are locking down the Strait of Hormuz. We may as well prepare today. Fuel prices will spiral in the coming weeks and months. We cannot allow a situation to develop again whereby local gardaí are pitted against their fellow citizens and local members of the Defence Forces are called out. That was erroneous in the first instance. What we really need to do now is to prepare.
We have been asking for the national security strategy for years. It is always a couple of days away or it will come out the following week. It is a bit like Donald Trump's alternative to Obamacare in the United States, which we hear will come out next week or the week after or maybe they are working on the last paragraph. It is simply not good enough. We need the national security strategy urgently. That is the first thing we need.
Second, we are about to head into a period of extreme industrial unrest. The teachers' conferences are just over and demands have been made for higher pay, better facilities in schools, etc. The Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, met at the weekend, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, will meet soon and the Garda representative body is meeting this week. We are heading into a time of industrial unrest. Let us not do what we did with respect to the protests on fuel, which we allowed to go on. When I say "we" I mean the Government and all of us in this House who sat on our hands while they were going on because the Houses were in recess. We should have recalled the Dáil and taken steps in the first days. We should have met people on the ground and engaged with them.
There is only a limited amount of tax revenue coming in to this country. We will not be able to buy our way out of this as the situation escalates, and escalate it will over the coming months unless, by some miracle, Donald Trump and the Iranians decide they never meant to go to war and let the ships move through Hormuz again. I ask that we invite the Minister for Finance to the House to debate the future problems associated with energy crisis.
We also need to publish today what a protest is and what is acceptable in a protest. The right to protest is guaranteed under the Constitution but it is limited and subject to restrictions. A protest that impacts the general population is simply not a protest – it is an illegal act. Locking down O'Connell Street or fuel depots so that nothing can move is an act of illegality. The people who were there thought they were behaving legally because nobody was giving them alternative information. They were taking their information from a hard right group. Let us be honest. These people did not care. We saw on social media stuff coming in from the United Kingdom. Let us publish what a reasonable protest is.