Even largely impotent "nationalist" (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks) Sinn Féin has been dragged, kicking and screaming, to at least be seen feigning interest in addressing the concerns of the protesters.

After state stormtroopers failed to quell the uprising over the weekend, the party yesterday announced the introduction of a motion of no confidence in the parliament.

Via The Independent (emphasis added):

"Fresh fuel protests caused traffic disruption across Ireland's motorways on Monday, despite the government's half-a-billion-euro package to address rising costs.

While blockades at fuel depots and Ireland's only oil refinery were lifted, smaller protests continued on motorways near Dublin. A Facebook page, a source of protest information, posted conflicting messages on Sunday night, suggesting both continued action on Monday and that "all protestors and Gardai go home"…

The seventh day of disruption on Monday comes as the government faces a motion of no confidence in the Irish parliament on Tuesday.

The main opposition party Sinn Fein is to table the motion criticising the government for not reconvening the Dail last week and not engaging directly with the protesters, while also calling on the government to take the "maximum action necessary" to cut fuel prices."

Sinn Féin finance spokesman Pearse Doherty on the protests and the motion of no confidence:

"Yes, it was about petrol, diesel, home heating oil, but it was also about all of the other pressures that people are feeling – whether it's energy costs, whether it's groceries, whether it's rents that continue to go up, and basically a tipping point that the government aren't listening, that we needed something to happen in terms of (a) cost (of) living package."

What you might notice is conspicuously absent from the Sinn Féin spokesman's list of popular grievances against the government is the unending waves of migrants with which it has besieged the tiny island for many years.

The migrant siege is clearly, if you listen to the Irish on the streets, the enduring, main impetus for the current protests; the fuel supply shock, rather than the underlying cause, is merely the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were.

How curious that the issue goes entirely glossed over by Sinn Fein.

But, then again, why should the Irish expect otherwise from the party with this immigration policy?