GOVERNMENT fuel supports aren’t worth the paper they are written on, according to a Skibbereen plant hire operator.

Ahead of the new measures which should start kicking in at the pumps today, Thursday, Mike Casey said: ‘We’d be better off packing up and going on the dole.’

The owner of Casey’s Plant Hire in Skibbereen described the government’s initial €250m package, and the €500m package agreed on Tuesday, as ‘smoke and mirrors’.

He said the net result for plant hire operators, silage contractors, quarry operators, those involved in construction, and farmers, is a 2.4 cent reduction on the price of green diesel.

As announced on Tuesday, the government has reduced the excise on green diesel by a further 2.4 cent inclusive of vat, bringing the total reduction on green diesel to 7.4 cent inclusive of vat.

‘No one is happy,’ said Mr Casey. ‘It turned out to be an absolute waste of time and energy. It would be a fine thing if we all sold everything and drew the dole.’

He said jobs have already been lost because contract work across a range of industries is drying up. He explained that the price of green diesel six weeks ago was 70c/l, plus 13.5% VAT, and now – today – green diesel is €1.48 or €1.50 a litre, plus VAT.

‘That’s double the price,’ said Mike, who added: ‘The €500m is only smoke and mirrors. All the government is doing is giving two cent a litre off green diesel. It makes no sense because the amount of diesel I burned today would be the entire consumption of one motorist over an entire month.’

Mr Casey continued: ‘If you read the fine print for white diesel you will see that you need a haulage licence to get the money back for a truck. A lot of people don’t have a haulage licence.

‘Then, if you read the fine print again, you have to be eligible to draw back by providing mounds of paperwork.’

He said over five or six days he would be paying between €1,500 to €2,000 extra per machine which is unsustainable. ‘There is no electric lorry, or digger, or electric tractor,’ he said. ‘It is too new a technology yet. We are all dependent on fuel.’

A silage contractor told The Southern Star: ‘People don’t realise that farmers are being hit by a triple whammy: the price of milk is bad at the moment; the weather is very bad; and the cost of fuel is sky-high – and the three are all hitting them at the same time.

‘We will have no choice but to pass on the costs, which, realistically is €50 an acre more. That means going from €160 an acre to €210.

‘The farmers can’t not cut silage, but it means they are going to be spending €4,000 or €5,000 extra on top of their bill. Who can afford that per annum?’ he asked.

Denis McKennedy of McKennedy Haulage Caheragh, who has three trucks on the road, described the 10c reduction on white diesel as simply being ‘not good enough’ and he described the green diesel reduction as
‘insulting.’

He said: ‘None of us want to pass on the increases to the customers because the customers are not going to be able to afford the
product.’

The only short-term solution, Denis said, is to cut back. ‘That means it is going to slow work, and stop an awful lot of jobs that were planned this year.

‘For anyone who got a quote to build a house, but have not yet signed a contract, they will find the price substantially higher. Businesses will close and there will be job losses as well,’ he warned.

Fergus Hurley of Gloun Stone in Schull warned: ‘In February and March our fuel bill went up by €65,000. We employ 30 people in a rural area. We can’t continue this. In two-months our business will be gone.’

He too described the government’s fuel package as ‘an insult.’

‘We cannot up our prices again,’ said Fergus, who explained that a lot of the work they do is for the local authority road works and building.

‘Once you tender for the local authority you are held to a fixed contract,’ he said, ‘so long-term this is going to hit the construction industry very hard.’