On RTE's Six-One television news last Friday, in a report on the road hauliers' disruption, there was a feature on a truck carrying medical supplies to a hospital in, I think, Mullingar. The report showed the truck being held up at three successive checkpoints, the papers of the truck driver being examined and, in one instance, the contents of the truck being inspected. It was eventually "allowed" to proceed, having been delayed for several hours.
The people engaged in this inspection were road hauliers. The television report showed gardai standing by as the militia detained the driver and examined his documents.
The scene was reminiscent of incidents in Northern Ireland during the Drumcree standoff three years ago and during the Loyalist Workers' Strike in May 1974. There was an added menace to the loyalist blockages, which was not part of the road hauliers' action. There was also a blatant sectarian background to the Northern Ireland incidents. Otherwise the two instances were very similar - two groups seeking to achieve a political objective through massive disruption and covert intimidation.
There is another similarity. In both instances, the police forces concerned stood by and watched displays of illegality without intervening. Indeed, it seems a senior Garda officer sat on a liaison committee with representatives of the road hauliers in order to minimise the scale of illegality and intimidation.
Throughout, not one political figure raised a cheep of protest over the lawlessness and the Garda complicity in it. Indeed, on the Saturday morning it emerged that the senior adviser to the Taoiseach was offering high-level meetings with the law-breakers to discuss how the State should most readily capitulate.
Irrespective of the merits or otherwise of the road hauliers' demands (and to my mind they are almost entirely otherwise), how can it be that it is now acceptable apparently for political objectives (i.e. a change of budgetary strategy) to be pursued through brazenly illegal and intimidatory means?
Before we go any further let us establish which laws were broken last Friday. Section 98 of the Road Traffic Act, 1994, provides: "A person shall not do any act (whether of commission or omission) which causes or is likely to cause traffic in any public place to be obstructed."
The Public Order Act, 1994, provides in Section 5: "It shall be an offence for any person in a public place to engage in offensive conduct (a) between the hours of 12 o'clock midnight and 7 o'clock in the morning next following or (b) at any other time after having been requested by a member of the Garda Siochana to desist. . . In this section `offensive conduct' means any unreasonable behaviour which, having regard to all the circumstances, is likely to cause serious offence or serious annoyance to any person who is or might reasonably be expected to be aware of such behaviour".
Section 9 of the same Act provides: "Any person who shall in any manner wilfully prevent or interrupt the free passage of any person or vehicle in any public place shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding £200." There is then the common law offence of public nuisance, which consists of an unlawful act, or omission, which obstructs or causes inconvenience or damage to the public.
And there is also the matter of conspiracy. Conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to do an unlawful act. Manifestly, the road hauliers were engaged in an agreement to do an unlawful act and were therefore guilty of conspiracy.
So how is it that the gardai should not only stand idly by and watch wanton displays of unlawfulness but actually join with them in a committee to oversee the co-ordination of this unlawfulness? How is it that the "zero tolerance" Government should respond to this illegality by capitulation or promised capitulation?
Just think of what the number of crimes committed by those truck-drivers on Friday last would do to the annual Garda crime statistics? It would drive them through the roof. But, of course, they won't rate a mention in next year's report.
Why, if such unlawfulness goes unopposed and is rewarded with capitulation, should not every group in society with a little muscle engage in a similar display when it suits interests? Why should the actual and would-be bullyboys of society bother with the tiresome process of politics when they can get their way directly through illegality?
Isn't it a pity that the Travellers cannot engage in similar disruption? If they were capable of closing down the State for a day, we might see some action to have them treated humanely. Ditto the refugees, the victims of neglect in mental institutions and prisons, the homeless, the legions of impoverished.
Last Friday's disruption was a copycat version of those in Britain and on the Continent. Further copycat protests, no doubt, will be encouraged by the copycat capitulation of several European governments to the undemocratic and illegal protests of road hauliers there. All this despite excellent reasons for increasing taxes on petrol and diesel. The report just released on Greenhouse Gas Abatement Strategy shows that there will be a 180 per cent rise in emissions from cars and trucks over the next 10 years if nothing is done. It shows this will cause huge damage to people's health. Already EU limits for emissions from cars and trucks are massively exceeded in the Dublin region.
Only Noel Dempsey had the gumption to state this point and insist there be no concessions. These law-breakers must be faced down because their demands damage the national interest and because concessions to law-breakers weaken the fabric of consensus which underpins democracy.