Call for people to be wary of protest calls as at least three fuel demos circulated online fail to materialise
A politician has made a call for people to “fact-check” claims of pending protests before promoting them.
Derry City and Strabane councillor Jason Barr was speaking in the wake of at least three mooted protests which have been circulated online and then failed to materialise.
One was said to be at 4pm in central Enniskillen on Friday, but did not happen.
Another was billed as taking place at 8am today, going from the village of Greysteel in Londonderry into the city itself.
It likewise did not happen.
There were also details circulated of a protest at the Maydown fuel complex to the north-east of Londonderry city this morning; it is not clear if this was to form part of the same Greysteel convoy, above, but in any case, nothing actually happened in the area.
Still another protest, set to take place at 2.30pm in Strabane yesterday, also did not happen.
One protest that did actually take place was on Saturday in Strabane / Lifford.
The people behind the Facebook page Strabane Area Fuel Protest told the News Letter that they organised that one, and that about 100 vehicles had been involved (footage of the protest shows tractors and lorries in a go-slow convoy).
The organisers told the News Letter that it was "a good turn out for the protest, and good feed back from the public", whilst the PSNI said: "Police were in attendance at a protest in Strabane on Saturday afternoon, April 11.
"The event passed off peacefully and disruption to the local community was minimised."
Independent (formerly SDLP) councillor Jason Barr told the News Letter he had spoken about it with the organisers of Saturday’s genuine Strabane protest, and they had come to the conclusion that today’s event was “definitely a hoax”.
He said that some locals had been angered by the 2.30pm start time of the second supposed Strabane protest today because it would have clashed with school pick-up times.
He said no-one "seems to be able to get to the bottom" of where that particular protest call ultimately came from.
He added: "If there's [Facebook] pages receiving these posters to be put up, they need to be fact-checked first."
John Martin, a haulage consultant based in Newcastle and a former high-level official in the Department for Infrastructure, told the News Letter that he does anticipate some protests taking place tomorrow – though he does not necessarily agree with it.
"I can certainly see the point they're trying to make,” he said.
"It's whether it actually helps the issue.
"They're delaying people on their journeys and adding cost to everyone's bottom line.
"One part of me agrees with protest, if it's done lawfully.
"Another part actually says: what benefit is there to it? What are the objectives they're setting out to achieve?
He added: "I can understand the frustration... the costs are enormous."
He said that "there probably will be" many people protesting today in Northern Ireland, because "for small hauliers in particular that don't have much buying power, their main cost is fuel" (besides wages), and the rising prices "could potentially put them out of business".
But he added that "the people that suffer are the travelling public" whenever roads are blocked.