The current protests on our streets are a textbook expression of working-class anger. Years of rising energy bills, fuel costs, and a government that consistently prioritises the interests of big capital have created the conditions for this moment. Across the country, and particularly in rural and small-town Ireland, workers have been left exposed to rising costs and chronic underinvestment, with little meaningful political response.
At the same time, the situation reflects a deeper problem. The left and labour movement have been too distant from many of these communities, and in that absence others have begun to fill the space. Therein lies a real danger. Rural workers, facing genuine hardship and long-term neglect, risk being drawn into alignment with a vocal and organised right-wing current, one which presents itself in national colours while advancing demands that do not serve the interests of the working class as a whole.
Let us be clear. The anger is legitimate. The cost-of-living crisis is real. Workers across all sectors, from farm labourers and drivers to retail and factory workers, have every right to organise, protest, and resist being made to bear the burden of a crisis they did not create. But the direction currently emerging within sections of these protests does not offer a way forward. Demands centred on tax cuts, fuel rebates, and targeted relief for self-employed operators will not raise wages, strengthen public services, or address the structural weaknesses of the Irish economy. They represent a narrow response to what is, in reality, a broad social crisis.
The protests also reveal an important contradiction. They demonstrate a real capacity for organisation and coordinated action, yet in the absence of clear working-class leadership, that energy risks being misdirected. The far right is not leading these protests, but it is present, vocal, and organised.
Where there is a vacuum, it will seek to shape events. If the labour movement does not intervene, the anger now visible will not dissipate; it will be redirected in ways that deepen division rather than build solidarity.
There is also a real risk that certain tactics, including blockades that disrupt workers, patients, and essential services, will turn sections of the working class against one another. Actions that impose additional hardship on working people ultimately weaken the possibility of building the broad unity required to win meaningful change. Tactics which divide workers or pit one section against another should be reconsidered in favour of forms of action that strengthen collective solidarity.
The current situation is also exposing and deepening an urban–rural divide. Different sections of working people are experiencing the crisis in different ways, but this division is not inevitable. It is the result of decades of policy which have neglected rural infrastructure while eroding living standards and public services in urban areas. Allowing this divide to harden only serves those who benefit from a fragmented and weakened working class.
What is required now is not the narrowing of demands, but their expansion. The cost-of-living crisis demands a response that unites workers across sectors and regions. This means substantial pay increases, one-off supports to offset inflation, investment in public services and infrastructure, and a long-term strategy for energy and food sovereignty that reduces Ireland’s dependence on external powers and volatile global markets.
Trade unions have a decisive role to play in this moment. The absence of organised working-class leadership has created the conditions in which the current situation has developed. If the labour movement does not act to organise and direct this anger, others will.
Unions must now move urgently to engage with workers across transport, agriculture, retail, education, and industry, and to develop a common programme of demands rooted in the shared interests of the working class. This requires active organisation in both urban and rural communities, breaking down the divisions that have been allowed to emerge.
What the current actions have shown is that effective direct action has the potential to shift the balance of forces and secure social,economic and political demands.
This moment demands coordinated action. A national mobilisation on May Day, rooted in workplaces and communities across the country, should now be organised to give collective expression to the anger that exists and to assert a clear, independent working-class alternative.
The central question is not whether anger exists, but who gives it direction. The task now is to ensure that it is organised in a way that builds unity, advances the interests of working people, and lays the foundation for a more just and sovereign economic model.
