Talks about a fuel support scheme between Government, farm organisations, hauliers and contractors ended this Saturday evening with a number of packages to be presented to a special cabinet meeting on Sunday morning.

It comes as fuel price protests continue around the country and blockades remain in place at Galway and Foynes ports.

Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien and Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon met with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris after talks with representative organisations concluded.

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The Irish Farmers Journal understands that a number of ways to get supports to farmers were discussed at this Saturday’s meetings, including payments to farmers on a per-hectare basis, payments per machine, a comparison of fuel receipts from 2025 and Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) data.

However, there was no agreement on a mechanism to get payments to farmers, with officials across departments to work into the night on the various aspects of the schemes.

No further details on a package for the farming or contracting sectors were agreed, with no detail of the total funding that will be allocated.

Public order unit

The Garda public order unit was deployed in Whitegate on Saturday morning, with Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly stating that gardaí “gave the blockaders fair warning that we were moving to enforcement and they choose to ignore it and continue to hold the country to ransom”.

“This morning, An Garda Síochána moved to restore fuel supplies from Whitegate Refinery. We made a number of arrests during this operation.

“In the coming hours and days, we will have further such operations,” he said.

Commissioner Kelly said gardaí are aware that there has been intimidation of fuel tanker drivers.

“These are criminal offences, we will not tolerate this and we will investigate all such reports and prosecute suspects.

“Offences such as threats to kill or cause serious harm carry sentences of up to 10 years.

“My message is clear. Blockaders must immediately cease blockades of critical infrastructure and road networks or face the full rigours of the law,” he said.

Feed supplies

The National Emergency Coordination Group commented on Saturday that the agriculture, food, fisheries and forestry sectors continue to be negatively affected by the ongoing blockades.

The Defence Forces are in Whitegate with heavy lifting equipment. \ Donal O’Leary

“The disruption to supplies of animal feed and fertiliser remains a significant issue and threatens the welfare of animals, with some mills carrying just three days stock at any given time. There is an increasing threat to the feasibility of milk collections from farms due to disruption of fuel supplies.

“The continued blockage of exports of agri-food produce poses a threat to export trade in a sector reliant on exporting 90% of its production.

"Separately, sawmills are also encountering challenges and the processing in some mills have ceased production due to a lack of materials,” it said.

The Irish Co-operative Organisation Society has warned that: “Most of the co-ops have enough fuel to struggle through Saturday and Sunday, but by Monday they will be out and what will happen then can only be described as a major crisis, because if milk cannot be collected, it will have to be dumped on farms. Milk will be spilt by Monday.”