Eoin Reedy

I could tell you what would happen.

Within an hour, the guards would be there and those workers would be arrested.

And within two hours, the union's general secretary would be written to and be told,

we're going to injunk this protest, illegal blockade in the High Court, and we're going to sequester your funds.

What happened when the farmers and the small businesses people did it?

Nothing for a week.

Now that strikes huge double standards and the message I've been getting from unions and from workers in the last week is it seems might is right here and we maybe need to sharpen our spears a little bit more and that maybe the government have taken industrial peace over the last number of years for granted.

Those rules are still there.

They're laws and we honour them.

The point I'm making is there are laws that unions and workers have to go through.

We have to ballot, we have to serve seven days notice.

If we don't do that, we can be injuncted.

But my point is it seems self-employed people and small business people seem to be able to do what they want.

That's not acceptable in a republic.

There cannot be a hierarchy of rights here for PAYE workers and for small businesses.

And we think this government has indulged small businesses too much in the last number of years, whether it's the giveaway to the hospitality sector and now the 750 million, not all of which is going to the farmers and the hauliers.

I accept that.

I mean, road users are getting a reduction in excise, but the reality is that's going to be gobbled up pretty quickly, Ciara, if Donald Trump keeps behaving the way he's behaving.

And, you know, that's not the long-term solution.

So we have some policy options that we want to put to government.