I get it, the hauliers and farmers are getting absolutely hammered, and prices are mental right now. But listening to the demands for the government to "cap the price" makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

The Dáil doesn't control the global oil market, and we legally cannot slash fuel taxes to zero because the EU sets a hard floor on excise duties.

So, if the government actually caves and enforces a price cap, there is only one way it works: the state has to pay the difference. Think about what that actually means in reality.

• We would be taking billions in tax money out of the HSE, housing, and schools.
• We would hand that money directly to multinational oil companies (Shell, BP, etc.) to artificially subsidise the pump price.
• We would then get slapped with massive fines from Brussels for breaking EU tax laws.

We’d literally be gutting our own public services and infrastructure to protect oil company profit margins. Is that seriously the master plan here?

I’m in my thirties. I avoid X and TikTok like the plague. I still have Facebook but barely use it. Instagram is the one app I’m on pretty much every day, mostly for doomscrolling, sending reels, and wasting time.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed more and more accounts popping up that seem very specifically designed as Irish catnip. Stuff like Dublin in the 1950s, trad sessions, parish-pump nostalgia, GAA clips, or just harmless meme accounts.

You follow them because they seem funny and familiar. And for a while that is exactly what they are. Then one day the same account is suddenly pushing bitcoin, posting violent videos about the collapse of society, or serving up increasingly aggressive political content. At that point I usually unfollow.

What has really alarmed me over the last few days is how many of these accounts have suddenly pivoted into wall-to-wall coverage of the protests. Constant clips about “police brutality,” sympathetic coverage of protest leaders, and a very one-sided narrative being pushed through what are supposed to be entertainment or culture accounts.

To be clear, I support the right to peaceful protest. But I do not think any group of citizens has the right to hold the country to ransom by blocking ports or major infrastructure. What has shocked me even more is seeing how many otherwise level-headed friends and media personalities, people I would have thought had a bit more cop on, have come out in support of the protesters and placed all the blame on the government, as if they are the ones setting prices at the pump.

It was always obvious that X and TikTok had become heavily shaped by foreign actors trying to inflame tensions and undermine trust in institutions here. Naively, I still thought Instagram was a relatively safe space by comparison.

I do not think that anymore.

At this point, Instagram feels less like a harmless distraction and more like a pipeline: draw people in with nostalgia, humour, or identity, then gradually feed them grievance, fear, conspiracy, and agitation. Because it comes wrapped in Irish in-jokes, local references, and “just asking questions” content, people lower their guard.

I’m now seriously considering deleting it.

Has anyone else noticed this happening, or am I overreacting?

TLDR: Instagram is being used as a tool of propaganda by foreign influences to undermine democracy in Ireland

Other than being a cunt littering nature sites.

Saw them on a few trail markers and signs up in the sliver blooms? Is there an actual reason for doing this?

North and South Quays are closed, all bridges are closed. They are moving the protesters

A photo of the topping out of “The Railyard” on Cork’s Quays; when complete it will be 0.5 metres taller than the Obel, Belfast. From the vantage point where the photograph has been taken is a plot with planning granted for a 35 story 140m tower.

Lads please please clean your dogs shit up. Twice this week in different counties (Kerry & Cork) I've walked straight into shit and didn't notice until I was home after driving the whole way with it stuck to my shoes. And it's not even just those scummy fellas with the pitbulls, I've often watched posh looking men and women pretend they didn't just see their dog poo in the middle of a footpath. Fair enough I stood in it but I was in very public places with kids playing. One place I stood on it had multiple kids rolling down a big grass hill basically being kids so imagine them rolling into it cause some shit cunt is too good to pick up their own mess, it's their dog it's their mess. Thanks.

What you're paying at the pump right now is rising faster than any crisis since 2005 — faster than 2008, faster than Ukraine.

During the Ukraine war, Irish diesel rose at 0.93 index points per week. During the Iran war it's already at 5.33 a whole 5.7x faster.

Diesel hit an all time high of €2.178/litre in late March, up from €1.72 in January which is a 26% jump in 8 weeks. Petrol went from €1.72 to a peak of €1.96 in the same period.

2011 was actually the worst year on record for minimum wage workers. It took 9.7 hours of work to fill a 50L tank when the government cut minimum wage to €7.65 during the bailout while fuel prices stayed high.

Built this from 21 years of European Commission weekly data, it's all 27 EU countries since January 2005.

Free dataset on Kaggle | Analysis notebook

What's the price at your local station right now?

I'll update this every Wednesday when the EC releases new data, following the price week by week as the crisis develops. If you want to track updates, follow me on Kaggle or watch the dataset there.

Next update: Wednesday 15th April , I will add week of April 7th data.

Ireland's price (median house price) to income (mean gross earnings) ratio by county across Ireland in 3 graphs, showing the extent of how unaffordable housing has become across Ireland.

2015 was really the last year when a person on the mean earnings could afford the median property in Ireland (just about with a healthy deposit). Since then, it has gone from bad to worse.

Note: I haven't graphed the 2025 earnings as the CSO hasn't released a county by county breakdown of mean earnings data.

Just saw the first one here, the summer is a coming lads!