"Hauliers have reached the bottom of the barrel," according to the president of the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA), Mr Eamonn Morrissey, who was speaking at the IRHA protest in Dublin today.
The IRHA is holding a demonstration outside the Dáil in protest at rising fuel prices. The protest started at 10:30 this morning when a total of nine cabs parked on Molesworth street and is due to disperse before rush-hour this evening.
The IRHA want the Minister for Finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy, to reduce the levy on fuel.
"Hauliers are looking for the Minister for Finance to give us back the reduction they gave us in the budget a couple of years back." Mr Morrissey told ireland.com.
Mr Morrissey claimed the Government and oil companies were the main benefactors of the current situation. He said the IRHA did not believe oil companies were allowing a competitive environment, while the Government was profiteering on the back of Irish motorists by collecting extra taxes.
The protest was also held to highlight other issues that were affecting the industry such as the increasing number of planned toll roads and the problem of illegal haulage.
Mr Morrissey said that while he wasn't in favour of disruption as a form of protest he warned that Hauliers could become more militant.
"Its not a way I like to see things done, disruption, if we have a protest like today, peaceful, well-organised, people might take us more seriously," he said. "If we don't get a response today I think the protest will become more militant," he added.
Mr McCreevy responded to the protest by issuing a short statement this afternoon.
"Excise tax is an issue to be address in a budget. It would be out of line with long established budgetary practices to alter tax rates between budgets and this would undermine prudent fiscal planning. There are variant diesel prices across the country and this indicates how good competition has a role to play in keeping prices down," the statement read.
Mr Jimmy Quinn the official spokesperson for the IRHA warned the Minister about the possibility of future action.
"Today is a token action we could have easily had 1,000 trucks in the city, we could have left it that you couldn't turn a skateboard here, but we decided to take a moderate course in the first instance in the hope we could maintain some dialogue," Mr Quinn said.
"The Minister for Finance has already helped himself to a phenomenal amount of our revenues. We're looking for relief and the only we're going to get it is from him," he added.
Gardai have advised motorists to avoid the area however very little traffic appears to have been affected by the protest.
