Owen O'Malley

It didn't really head off this problem and it sort of almost invited the protesters to do what they did because otherwise there was a sense that they weren't going to be listened to.

I mean, the Irish government has already announced that it's taking 10 cents off the fuel duty.

It's postponing the planned increase in carbon taxes.

A lot of the policies that the Irish governments have been introducing for the last 15 years have been ones to try and address climate change issues.

They've been very unpopular, and so all polls show that people don't really want these, but the governments have been just pushing them through and through.

They've listened to these protests now, which will probably just encourage more protests in the future because this seems to be the only way to be listened to because they weren't really listening to people before the protests happened.