Petrol starts to flow again in Wexford

October 1980

Garage owners in Wexford have predicted that the petrol supply situation in the town will be back to normal by the end of the week.

As petrol started to flow again in Dublin this week, as well as some other parts of the country, the situation in Wexford remained serious and long queues continued to build up.

At one stage on Monday night, the queue at Rocklands Service Station on the Rosslare road had an estimated one hundred and eighty cars in it, and it stretched all the way back to Kerlogue Cross.

But tankers driven by army personnel started rolling into Wexford the following day, and it is now envisaged that the fuel supply crisis will ease considerably in the coming days.

And the army received plaudits this week from the proprietors of the two Wexford garages designated by the Minister for Energy to sell to essential services.

‘ The army has been criticised in certain quarter this week but I want to say they are doing an excellent job,’ said Mr Peter Caulfield, at Rocklands, while Mrs Bessy Parle at The Ambassador, further out the Rosslare Road, concurred and said they were doing very well.

Both Mr Caulfield and Mrs Parle feel that the situation will have improved greatly by the weekend. ‘ Things will be back to normal in a few days,’ Mr Caulfield said on Wednesday, as he waited for his fourth delivery since the Defence Forces intervened.

Mr Caulfield felt however that many people were not familiar with the Minister’s stipulation that at designated stations, the hours between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. were reserved for essential services.

But depending on stocks, he is selling petrol to the general public outside those hours, and on one night this week, cars were leaving his forecourt at the rate of six per minute and in just one hour and five minutes, he and his staff had sold petrol to more than three hundred and sixty customers.

The Ambassador received five thousand gallons on Tuesday and is opening from early in the morning until 10 p.m. at night, giving each motorist what they want.

Rocklands was only filling cars they normally fill, but Mr Caulfield said everyone was getting enough to get to and from work, and workers at Wexford Creamery and other industries at that end of town had also been facilitated.

‘Cars are still queuing, but it is a healthy queue,’ Mrs Parle at The Ambassador said. ‘If we have petrol, there is no problem, and we have had no complaints from anyone.’

One group of motorists doing better than most during the shortage is CB radio enthusiasts. They warn other users away from stations with long queues, and tell them where the petrol is flowing freely.

A spokesman for the Whiskey Town Breakers (the Wexford CB club) described it as a most effective way to beat the crisis.