Freak weather in Brazil, including floods as well as drought, has limited the coffee crop over the last couple of years. Prices have risen, but the Irish Government has done nothing about the plight of coffee consumers.

The inability of the Government to control the world price of coffee has passed quietly and without nationwide protests, unlike the parallel inability to control the world price of oil.

The reason for the insistent demands that Government should protect the public is that politicians, in both Government and opposition, have flatly declined to explain that import prices, like the weather, are just things that happen. Sometimes it is good news, sometimes bad.

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Export prices rise and fall too, as every farmer knows, and whenever they rise or fall, this must feed into domestic prices. There is nothing that you can do about it, other than to respond with subsidies to the most vociferous when import prices go up. No lobby group volunteers for lower subsidies when export prices improve.

Oil products are more important than coffee and the war in the Middle East has hit consumers’ pocket far harder than the weather in Brazil, but the extent of the protests and the evident anger with the Government requires explanation nonetheless.

The threat to classify the protests as law-breaking and to call in the army was duly made, but the law-and-order response has been accompanied by negotiations and the willingness of Government to offer more subsidies.

There was a precedent in the case of the occupation by farmers of the Bord Bia headquarters in Dublin some weeks back – trespass is against the law. But very few people were discommoded aside from Bord Bia staff and the Government, perhaps wisely, decided to avoid confrontation.

The protests against rising petrol and diesel prices have followed a different course. It is clear that the protesters, including hauliers as well as farmers, were pursuing a sectional interest, but it struck a strong chord with the public, who spend more on petrol and diesel than they do on a small category like coffee.

Auto fuels are not cheap in Ireland, there are substantial taxes and the Government, after the initial surge in prices at the pump, had already demonstrated its willingness to use tax cuts to buy off discontent.

The first package introduced on 25 March devoted €250m over the nine weeks to end-May, say €30m a week, to the reduction of indirect taxes. The latest measures will add a further €500m to the cost, now €750m – the Government’s ability to dictate the world price of oil has not improved in the interim.

It is clear that the protesters, including hauliers as well as farmers, were pursuing a sectional interest, but it struck a strong chord with the public, who spend more on petrol and diesel than they do on a small category like coffee

The protests reflect the perception that something called ‘the Government’ is helping itself to the public’s hard-earned money through the taxation of oil products, rather as if the proceeds were delivered to cabinet meetings in wheelbarrows to be divided between the ministers in attendance.

All Government tax revenue, as every adult should be aware, is deployed by the Exchequer to meet the cost of public services, recently rising at well above the rate envisaged in the budget. There are demands for more spending almost daily – the Minister for Education has just chimed in with a figure of €500m needed, she believes, to meet payroll demands.

Meanwhile, the Fiscal Council has been warning about constant overshoots in current spending and the revenue side of the budget is increasingly dominated by the unexpected gift of corporation tax revenue from US multinationals based here, which the US Congress could scupper unilaterally and at a time of its choosing.

On the capital side, the oversight role of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, initially enshrined in the Public Spending Code, has for all practical purposes been abandoned.

The evaluation of capital projects is now entrusted to consultants engaged by the project promoters, almost always State agencies. The consultants have obvious incentives to exaggerate benefits and minimise prospective costs, a pattern thoroughly documented in studies of State capital projects internationally.

There has been a surprising alliance of farmer interests and hauliers in the groups supporting the protests.

There is a solid reason behind the lower rates of tax on green diesel – most tractors rarely leave the farm, and taxes on road travel, mostly free to the public at the point of use aside from a small amount of tolling, should not be imposed on non-users.

Hauliers are different – road engineers will confirm that most of the damage to roads is caused by heavy vehicles and big bills have to be met from the public purse for road maintenance and renewal. There is a logic to having higher, not lower, taxes on the big trucks which have been blocking the country’s roads.