A SMALL BUSINESS owner whose commercial vehicles’ tyres were deflated by anti-SUV climate activists last week has warned: “I’m with them on the climate crisis, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

Mark Kelly is the managing director of The School of Irish Archaeology and his business vehicles were targeted on Saturday.

Speaking to The Journal, Kelly said: “We run a very small business at The School of Irish Archaeology.

“What we do is we facilitate workshops for primary-aged children and secondary level students. We also do public events like heritage events.”

He said last Saturday, two of his commercial vehicles had their tyres deflated.

“If you look at the tax disk, you’ll see that this is a commercial vehicle for commercial purposes.

“One of our vehicles that was deflated had a great big 16-foot trailer on the back of it.”

The trailer is used to transport the “Big Dig”, which is a replica of a ‘Viking House’ and excavation site.

It allows children to explore the Viking world through a simulated archaeology dig.

“These people running around the streets in the middle of the night, they’re kids most likely, fairly naive and ignorant, who don’t really see the knock-on effects of what they’re actually doing.

“They’re putting very small businesses potentially out of business in one clean swoop.

“We could have lost up to €5,000 that day just on the actions of these people who are blaming us for the climate crisis.”

Kelly told The Journal that he was “particularly irked” because he’s “with everybody on the climate crisis”.

“We’re trying to improve, but I can’t bring this customised Viking house on a pushbike,” said Kelly.

“It requires a heavy machine, like a 4×4, to be able to pull the trailer.

“These guys knew that I’m a trader, yet they went ahead and deflated those tyres.

“We’re on their side. I don’t want to be driving around in a vehicle like a gas guzzler either, but until we have the vehicles that are able to do this job and that is clean for the environment, I have to run a business.

“They’re not winning me over at this rate, and they don’t need to as I’m with them on the climate crisis, but this isn’t the way to do it.”

Kelly added that he isn’t using the SUV to bring children to creche or using it as a status symbol.

“I bought this vehicle to be able to do the job that I do.

“If they had any sense, look at the tax and insurance disk, they’ll see it’s a commercial vehicle for commercial use.”

Kelly said that he and his children cycle to school and that his commercial vehicles are very rarely used for private use, as little as five percent he estimates.

He added that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to use bikes in Dublin.

“I cycle and my bike was robbed from outside the house recently, the second time it’s been robbed, and Dublin City Council don’t provide bike bunkers to store your bike safely.”

The actions of The Tyre Extinguishers came to light when Fine Gael TD Neale Richmond tweeted that the “supposed climate action group” had “slashed” tyres in Churchtown, a leafy south Dublin suburb.

In a statement to The Journal, a garda spokesperson said gardaí are “investigating a number of incidents of criminal damage that occurred in the Churchtown area in the early hours of Wednesday”. 

A leaflet from the group read: “We have deflated your tyres, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car.”

I’ve had calls from constituents who last night had their tyres slashed in Churchtown by a supposed climate action group.

It’s now with the local Gardaí.

This thuggery is unacceptable, I’m hopeful the investigation can put a stop to this carry on but be vigilant. pic.twitter.com/NnQUFSGUpu

— Neale Richmond (@nealerichmond) June 14, 2023

The leaflet then goes on to say that “SUVs and 4X4s are a disaster for our climate”.

While The Tyre Extinguisher leaflet claimed that the “impacts on you will have probably been minimal”, Kelly said it cost him €200 to remedy the deflated tyres.

“It cost me over €200 to bring these guys to inflate the tyres because I was under such time pressure. I needed to get to the event, or it would have been called off.

“Luckily it wasn’t called off but if I didn’t think quickly or wasn’t able to have a solution quickly, that may have caused the event to be cancelled.”

Kelly also cautioned: “They could have done it to somebody with a disability. If they didn’t look at the 16-foot trailer on the back of my vehicle, I’m sure they’re not going to be looking for a disability badge.

“Maybe these guys need to go back to school and educate themselves better, if this is how they’re trying to educate us.

“It’s all well and good to create awareness, we believe in all the same things, but they can’t be picking on civilians and small businesses and affecting their incomes and their way of life.

“It’s nonsensical, this has no value. Target the root cause, get onto the government, you need to create positive change in a positive way, not by creating negativity.”

Environmentalists react

Meanwhile, the chief executive of Friends of the Earth Ireland, the leading climate NGO, said he could “totally understand” the protestors’ motivation. 

Oisín Coghlan said: “The kind of campaigning and advocacy that people like ourselves do clearly hasn’t worked so far. Our reasonable approach on transport has had very limited success, so I can totally understand why a new generation of activists might choose different tactics.

“The minor inconvenience or disruption caused by some tyres being deflated is nothing compared to, not just the future risks, but the current impacts of climate around the world.”

However, he voiced concern at targeting individuals.

“We need to be targeting the corporate companies and structures that are driving pollution, rather than the individual who, for whatever reason, has chosen to have an SUV and now finds their tyres deflated,” Coghlan said.

Coghlan noted that deep social changes in the past have also involved a spectrum of campaigning tactics. 

“The abolition of slavery, the suffragettes, anti-apartheid, all of those used tactics that went way, way, way beyond deflating some tyres,” Coghlan said.

“But now nobody criticises their tactics because their cause was just and most people accept that the cause here is just, we need to keep the planet liveable.

“It’s not about saving the planet or the polar bears, this is about making sure human civilization can continue on Earth. Those are the stakes.

“We need our decision makers to wake up and the longer our decision makers keep sleepwalking, I imagine the more desperate the tactics will become from those who are frustrated by that.”

‘Not vandalism’

Environmental campaigner John Gibbons noted that this type of action has been going on in Britain “for quite some time” and that it was “probably inevitable that it would get here”.

He added that while he wouldn’t partake in such action, he did not believe it should be described as “vandalism”.

“This is absolutely not vandalism. Vandalism implies mindless destruction. This is clearly thought through, so it’s certainly not vandalism.”

“When people engage in direct action, whether it’s blocking up roads or deflating tyres, these actions are deliberately designed to be provocative. And they’re designed, for example, so that we have conversations like this.”

Gibbons added: “The question maybe we should be asking is, in 10 years time as the climate system basically fails and people start experiencing extreme suffering, will it have been considered to be a reasonable thing to have taken direct action in 2023?

“Or will it have been considered to be a reasonable thing to have sat on the sidelines and done nothing? That’s the question I think we all have to think about.

“If you go into a field and have a protest and hold up some banners, who are you annoying? Nobody. What are you achieving? Nothing.

“So this is my concern with people saying, ‘oh, I wish they would do that in that place that doesn’t upset anybody’, then you miss the point of direct action.”

Gibbons added that the “shame” element to the deflation of tyres can be a useful means of changing behaviour.

“There was a motoring review in a British newspaper recently,” said Gibbons, “and they were asking the question: ‘Am I likely to be to have my tyre deflated if I buy an SUV?’

“It’s introducing the idea of shame and shame has a very useful construction.

“There are certain things we should be ashamed about; we should be ashamed of racism or littering or violence.

“Should we be ashamed of buying these type of vehicles that are completely unnecessary in the middle of a climate emergency? Maybe yes, we should.”

While Gibbons said shame is “uncomfortable of course”, he adds that it “has a useful function if shame makes us stop and think about our actions”.

“Okay,  you have an SUV now,” said Gibbons, “but maybe when you change you’ll get a sensible car.

“The chances are you bought that car because you liked the look of it, you didn’t set about to destroy the climate.

“But by bringing people’s attention to it, there’s a better chance with increased awareness that people will go, ‘okay, I can do better, I didn’t know that when I bought it, but I can make a better decision the next time.’”

Writing in The Journal yesterday, Sadhbh O’Neill, co-ordinator of the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, argued that SUVs were an “environmental and social scourge” and their increasing popularity was cancelling out the benefits of electric cars. 

“Discovering that your tyres have been deflated by activists is understandably distressing and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, and I certainly don’t condone damage to private property. But we do need to talk about regulating SUVs out of our cities,” O’Neill wrote.