Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has asked the Taoiseach to recall the Dáil next week so it can vote to delay the first stage of the planned reversal of fuel excise duty cuts, due to begin on September 1st.McDonald has also called for any further changes to the existing excise duty rate on petrol and diesel to be delayed until after October’s budget. She made the demands in a letter sent to Micheál Martin on Thursday night. In April, fuel protests brought parts of the country to a standstill and resulted in the Government announcing a support package worth about €750 million. At the time, the Government increased temporary fuel excise cuts to 32c on a litre of diesel and 27c for petrol, but these reductions are due to be unwound on a phased basis between September and December.From September 1st, 9 cent will be added to a litre of petrol and 10 cent will be added to a litre of diesel. Further increases are expected at the start of October, November and December.The Dáil is scheduled to resume on September 16th.In a statement issued on Friday, Sinn Féin’s finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty confirmed McDonald’s letter and echoed her call for the Dáil to be reconvened early. “September 1st is still more than a week away. There is time to change course,” Doherty said.“The Taoiseach should recall the Dáil for a day, pass the necessary financial resolution and stop these petrol and diesel price increases from going ahead.”Doherty said petrol and diesel prices had “risen sharply in recent weeks, putting further pressure on workers, families and businesses”.“Diesel is now averaging €1.92 per litre, having increased by 19 cent in just one month, while petrol has risen by 9 cent to €1.84," he said.Doherty said it would be “completely wrong” for Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Independent TDs in the coalition to follow through with the planned increases as such a scenario would adversely affect workers, farmers, hauliers and other groups.A cost-of-living protest is due to take place in various locations around the country on August 31st.Michelle Keane, one of the organisers, described the protest as “round two” of the fuel protests held in April, “but in a different spin because it’s to do with the cost-of-living crisis”.Speaking to The Irish Times last week, Keane said: “People are at the pin of their dollars. I mean, people can’t afford to pay their electricity bills. Winter is coming in. Older people can’t afford to turn on the heating.”Some of the organisers of April’s protests have distanced themselves from the demonstrations planned for August 31st, but said they may hold another protest on a different date. The Fuel Protest Group, which was behind the nationwide blockades earlier this year, said that if the Government went ahead with its plan to begin unwinding the temporary rebates on diesel and petrol prices on September 1st, it would move immediately with a new protest campaign. Members of the group met informally in Athlone last Saturday night on the margins of an Independent Ireland meeting to discuss the export of cattle. Others spoke to the group’s organisers by phone from Limerick, Wexford and Cork. Westmeath-based agricultural contractor James Geoghegan, who is a spokesman for the group, called on the Government to “row back” on the decision to reverse fuel excise duty cuts and “not do something stupid”.“It’s not the time to put 10c on a litre of diesel. In some places, diesel is almost €2 a litre even with the reduction in place,” Geoghegan said last weekend.If the September 1st changes went ahead as planned, he said, the protest group would be “ready to hit the road”.Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke on Thursday did not rule out an early return of the Dáil, saying the matter was under review.“Government leaders are keeping all those decisions under review, and obviously a lot has changed over the last number of weeks,” Burke said.“It is so uncertain internationally, and we’ve seen things escalate very, very dramatically in the last week, particularly in relation to the Strait of Hormuz, the timeline passing now for a deal, which leaves us in very uncertain, uncharted territory again, and also when you see the price escalating the pumps.”