Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0818 715 815. This is Live Line on RTÉ Radio 1.
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A week had I been here, I would have spent talking exclusively about fuel protests. As it happened, I spent my entire week exclusively talking about fuel protests. It is the only thing that people were talking about and people continue to talk about, be it the sidelines of matches. God knows I wasn't on enough of them over the past few days or around dinner tables or anywhere else.
It is the only show in town. And having had a week to watch from the outside, looking outside in at everything going on, I mean, it beggars belief how we found ourselves in the situation we were in last week and the situation we still find ourselves in. When I think back... to the opening day of the war in Iran. And we started here in LiveLine speaking to Iranians living in this country.
And I'd say we were on air five minutes and the phone lines began to hop with people talking about the price of kerosene and home heating oil. And that very first day we spoke to people who were worried about being able to put food on the table. with the increasing cost of home heating oil. They were quite literally facing that heat or eat choice.
And then we had commuters who got in touch with us that week and we had hauliers and we had contractors who got in touch with us that very first week. And the initial response from government was what? Was do nothing. We will hold a watching brief. And by the way, we can't control oil prices because they're set on global markets. Now, I'm sorry.
But if you listen to a pensioner say that they might have to forego food to heat their home. And your best response is to explain the vagaries of the international commodities market. I don't know what you're doing in politics. And it was that response, that lack of a response at the start, that sowed the seeds of this.
That's where the anger was fermented for different people up and down the country. I'm telling you, because I talk to them every day on this show. That's where it started. And it shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone that it ultimately boiled over. Ultimately, To reduce the boil, the government have announced this 500 million euro intervention.
Well, a three quarter of a billion euro intervention is how they would describe it when you add in other announcements over the last couple of weeks. Now, not enough, according to some of those who are protesting and we're still out blocking different roads around the country this morning. So my question today to people is a very, very simple one. What do you think of this deal?
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Chapter 2: What are the fuel protests about and why are they significant?
Are you working in transport, school transport even? Will this be enough to keep the wool from the door? Will you manage to stay in business? If not, what do you need? And will you keep protesting until you get it? 0818715815. Maybe you're a PAYE worker. And if so, well, let's be honest, you didn't get much in the budget last year.
And maybe you won't get much in the budget this year either after the government have committed to three quarters of a billion euro of spending on this. So what do you think? Do you think this was spending taxpayers money wisely? Maybe you've got your own. personal cost-of-living crisis that you're still dealing with in your own home and you want to talk about it.
Live line at rte.ie, the email address, if you want to get in touch. Cormac McBreen is on the line from Coral Plant in Agri. Cormac, were you out protesting last week?
I was, yeah. I was. I was kind of up there on the front lines there all week. So we were, we kind of left RD on, and from Navon on... Tuesday morning, so we did early, and kind of went up the road. And to be honest, the numbers was kind of very, very small and we didn't really know. I think everyone admits the same thing.
We were all just winging it up the road to do a kind of peaceful protest because of the fuel crisis. And we ended up parked in on O'Connell Street there and there was talks and, how would I call it, speeches and everything there. So it was around three o'clock. And after that, then people just went out and peacefully kind of protested on the streets and that like and that.
And the atmosphere was very good and the guards couldn't have been any better all week on O'Connell Street. I don't know about the rest of the country, but in O'Connell Street, they were absolutely top class the whole week up until probably the very day in debt when everyone was moved.
Like, you know, and the thing on that is, I think if that actually come to the people and just say, here, do you know what, you need to get out of here or else, I think everyone would have just got up and just walked out, you know. You know, it was peaceful, it couldn't mean any more peaceful. I think if anyone says different, it's incorrect.
But basically, look, I'm a silage contractor, so I'm down based in Gaffin, so I'm... paying huge money in finances and everything every month. And I think the diesel's just really destroyed. It broke the camel's back. It's all it was really looked for was a cap on the diesel. You know, we are in a crisis. The cost is just going up through the roof.
And, you know, it's all anyone was looking for was a simple cap on it. Like what was given, like after a full week of them having meetings and everything else like that to come back was another two and a half cents. I just, I can't even believe it myself. Like, you know, like Christopher Duffy would have been one of the main people there in it from the start, like up in the speeches and that.
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Chapter 3: How are rising fuel prices affecting everyday citizens?
I'll give him hats off to him. He's the best man in the country for uniting the people. Because I think before that, they were kind of divided. And he's done everyone a big favour.
But do you not accept the reality, though, of what he had to say on some level? You know, that there are overseas... things that influence the price more than anything that happens in this country. You know, and that our hands are tied by EU law to a degree and what you can do on excise and tax. I mean, even this deal, technically it's not over the line yet, I don't think.
It's still waiting the stamp of approval from the European Commission. You know, so when he's saying these things, we might not like them, but they're true.
Well, it's like this. There's 65% tax on diesel. Now, I'm not very educated on the whole political thing or about what different percentages is or what they have to do to Europe. But what I do know is I'm a man on the ground, and I know what I can run machinery for and what I can't run machinery for. And I made a decision last night, so I did, to basically call halt to my business.
Because I want to be recession-proof. I've lived one recession and, by God, I don't want to go through another one. And I have a lot of employees and I don't want to lose them. And I want to do my best to try and batten down the hatches now and try and make it through this. And the only way I see you doing that is getting up and getting out now. And, like, as I said...
The government and everyone else can butter this up whatever way they want, so they can, and they can play around with figures all they want. But I've got out of contracting today, which I sat in my office there back a couple of hours ago with four girls and with three of the men, me and men that was with us, and it's all crying over this. So it is.
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Chapter 4: What was the government's initial response to the fuel crisis?
This is not a simple decision, so it's not. But there's people going to be going on social welfare or whatever they need to go to this evening over this. And the thing I'm going to have to let go is lads go out of my yard for the first time ever. I've never let anyone go since the start. But I have to let them go. That's the decision I have to make.
Sorry, Cormac, are you telling us, are you downsizing or are you getting rid of the business altogether?
I'm getting rid of the contracting, the agri-contracting side of our business shut up last night at 12 o'clock. And I mean for good. I'm not reversing. If the government comes out today and they tell me they're going to give me a euro a year off, I am still never will attract or leave my yard again doing contracting. That is the decision I made. I'm not fighting anymore with this. I'm gone.
And you know what? I hope all the contractors around the country sit down tonight and look at themselves in the mirror and and just turn around and say, is this worth this sinking ship? Because I'm telling you now, I've lived on the front line since 2007, and it is a sinking ship. And only I have other things in the background that's kind of keeping it propped up
But I think me leaving now might save some other contractors around me because I'm poisoning them. I have another business that I can go off at and not worry about my contracting business. But I just want to batten down the hat, just keep my employees safe, that they're able to pay their mortgages and that they're not going to go through what I went through in 2008 and 2009.
But when did you make this decision, Cormac? I mean, was it at the protests?
Was it driving home? No, it's been playing on my mind for a while. People doesn't understand. This is not... The diesel is the straw that broke the camel's back. Now, I'm not blaming the government on this next thing. But I could buy a 200 horsepower Matthew Ferguson tractor. So I could in 2019 for 95,000 plus the VAT. That same tractor today is 175,000 plus VAT for one tractor. I have 10.
It doesn't take a mathematician to work out the figures. If fusion baler was 55,000, it is now 100,000 plus the VAT, 126,000 for one bloody baler. It gets the same rates that we were nearly getting back in 2019. I'm sorry, Cormac, why?
Because I don't know anything about this, but why has the cost of machinery gone up so much?
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Chapter 5: What are the protesters demanding from the government?
And literally, I stopped at my grandfather's grave on the way down the road so I didn't know of her. I cried the whole way through Nav and so I did. Because when I met the roundabout in Nav and I met hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people protesting that I didn't even know was doing a protest. And we were on our way home.
And I promised when I left that city, I wouldn't be going back near any bloody protest. We went up Tuesday night. or Tuesday morning, sorry, and we planned on nearly coming home that evening. But then the government said that they were going to have a meeting three days later. That's what held this whole thing.
If they had to turn around, why didn't they have a meeting that day and try and talk about it? Or at least give something to the people, instead of leaving everyone hanging on for a full week till Friday, till the thing ended up like a bloody festival above Friday evening.
Sorry, Cormac, it's fair for me to be defending the government, I'm not, but it just sounds like, it sounds though, even if they had the meeting immediately, you know, they tried to nip everything in the bud and they came out with a much more generous package.
I mean, the way you describe it, I'm not sure, I'm not sure if there's anything they could have announced that would have made your business viable.
Well, it's 65% tax. I'm sure in a 65% tax, there was a bit of leeway. You know what? Two and a half cent isn't going to cost. Like 10 cent on the white diesel and two and a half cent is not going to cost. Like it's going up. Like they give two and a half cent off a month ago.
Even if they kind of doubled that or even tripled it, would that have kept you in business with all those other input costs that you talk about?
No, not hope. Not hope. Anybody in contract can ship this way. But you know what I mean?
What I'm saying is, and again, it's not to defend, but it's, I guess, what they've announced, the government, it's about three quarters of a billion quid. And if we're saying even triple it, it wouldn't have kept you in business. It was just that there's some bigger problems.
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Chapter 6: How do different callers perceive the government's intervention?
It has no one to do their silage this year. Other contractors are going to have to move in now, so they are. Three associations went to that meeting the other day. The IFA, the Hull Association and the SCI. And what did they actually do at the end of the whole thing? They're all government bodies and they sat down in meetings all week and they came back with two and a half cents.
And you're saying they can't, maybe they can't do that. But maybe if they stopped giving so many millions away to everywhere else and start looking after the Irish people, we wouldn't be in this situation.
The... The increased cost though, I mean, of everything that you're facing.
I mean, had the government... It's unsustainable. That's the word that you're looking for. Unsustainable. But not just for me. I actually could sustain this. I have a business that will prop this up and will sustain it. But I am getting out because I am hoping that I will save other contractors around me.
Because if I go out of this, that means that they might survive because they're trying to make a living only off contracting. I have something else there. So I've made my decision.
And it's an awful decision. I mean, you were in tears yourself.
It's not an awful decision. It's the biggest weight on my shoulders this morning.
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Chapter 7: What challenges are contractors facing due to rising costs?
I slept better last night and I slept in a long, long time. Yeah, because why should I be covering all these costs? My biggest thing was the thing everyone keeps saying, pass it on, pass it on, pass it on. I am not sitting in a bloody field in the middle of July or June or July this year bailing for some farmer and him cribbing and crying about the price of the bail and everything else.
And I have to try and argue with him into why you have to pass on the cost. Because I haven't passed on the cost this year. You know what I'm saying? You can't pass it on because the farmer's not going to be fit to pay it. You'll do the work. Like I said, it's easy doing the work, but it's getting paid for it after the problem.
In the contracting game, any contractor will tell you, you're waiting six to nine months to 12 months to get paid for the work. So you're carrying that cash flow for a full 12 months and you're having to pay all your suppliers, your diesel, your wrap, your everything else. I don't know what the solution is. There doesn't seem to be a solution, but you know what the solution will be?
When all the contractors sells up all the machineries and goes, who's going to buy the machinery? So is the government going to buy tractors and put people on them? to do the work. Because you know who's not going to buy it? It's the farmer. Because a farmer cannot afford a 200-plus, 1,000-euro tractor to go out and do flipping a couple of hundred bales a year. That day's gone.
Back in 2007, you could buy a whole bloody outfit for 70,000. Like balers, tractors, two tractors, a baler, a wrapper, and do the whole thing. Now you can't even buy a bloody baler for 100,000. And the rate is not up that much. Like my father and uncle, so they bailed back in 1985 and 86.
And bloody hell, when you break down the rates of it, they weren't actually getting much less than what we're getting today. And probably 20,000. I think back then, Massey Ferguson 399 in 1994 was 27,000 euros. Now you wouldn't buy a tractor for 190,000 euros.
What equipment are you going to be selling, Cormac?
I am selling everything. And whatever doesn't sell, doesn't sell. And you know what? I'm not even bothered. I'm not in a push to sell it. There's brand new tractors out there that doesn't have 100 hours. There's a digger there with 180 hours on it. A 240 Komatsu worth about 200 grand. There's a brand new Fusion baler sitting in the shed. There's not even a bale on it yet. That's going.
The other baler. Every single machine in my yard is going, except I do a little bit. in a local quarry so I'll keep a couple of things to keep my own employees battened down. I am promising my employees in my yard, my top men, the top women in the office that I'm going to try my best to keep them going for the next 10, 20 years even if we hit a recession.
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Chapter 8: How is the cost of living impacting families in Ireland?
That is just wrong. It shouldn't be tolerated in any society. They're imposing. There's a limited amount of money to go around to deal with this crisis. And they're trying to run off with the vast majority of it by intimidating people.
How do they use their machinery as weapons?
By the blockades. Simple as that.
You know, have you ever been... No offence, hold on a second, let's just jump in there. Well, do you ever hear the saying back when you're a youngster that someone's stupid enough to walk into a parked car? All the tractors and everything else was parked in the middle of O'Connell Street and moved in there by the guards and strategically parked out of the way and out of danger.
So nobody actually... You can't hurt someone with a machine that's turned off.
Okay. What about... Here's just one example of multiple examples. I got onto a Lewis in Dublin on Saturday night. We went to the Point Depot, or the Point Theatre, what it's called now, right? What was on, what was being played, was of interest to people of a significant age. It wasn't young people wandering around Dublin. I saw people with walking sticks. I saw wheelchairs. We didn't enjoy it.
We got out at the intermission. And we got a Lewis to Abbey Street, which then refused to continue. Why? Because the blockade stopped it. Now, hold on, hold on. That's just one example, right?
Can I answer that one? Can I answer that one? Can I answer you? Give your examples and I'll answer your example. Right, so the old person with the walking stick was out there and that sounds desperate, so doesn't all that. But what about the old person out in the country that can't afford heat and oil anymore? Do they burn their walking stick in the fire then to get a bit of heat?
Or how long does that last for?
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