Normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings.^[1] Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects.^[2] The normalcy bias causes many people to prepare inadequately for natural disasters, market crashes, and calamities caused by human error. About 80% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster.^[3]

The normalcy bias can manifest in response to warnings about disasters and actual catastrophes. Such events can range in scale from incidents such as traffic collisions to global catastrophic risk. The event may involve socially constructed phenomena such as loss of money in market crashes, or direct threats to continuity of life: as in natural disasters like a tsunami or violence in war.

Normalcy bias has also been called analysis paralysis, the ostrich effect,^[4] and by first responders, the negative panic.^[5] The opposite of normalcy bias is overreaction, or worst-case scenario bias,^[6][7] in which small deviations from normality are dealt with as signals of an impending catastrophe.

Travel across Ireland has been hampered by slow-moving convoys of lorries, tractors and more - some of which have been blocking the country's only oil refinery in Whitegate, County Cork.

The blockades have successfully strangled the distribution of fuel around the country, though ambulance and fire services are also facing "increasing pressure" on fuel supplies.

And now, fears are rising that as many as a third of Ireland's 1,500 filling stations will run dry by this morning.

As a result, the Irish Government has been locked in talks to bring the protests to an end, with a fuel support package set to be finalised soon.

Irish ministers had said on Friday that no further package of support measures would be announced until fuel protesters ended their action - shortly before news of said package came to light.

The Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, has confirmed the Irish army "is on standby" to ensure the "law is upheld".

While over in Britain, Labour has held talks on how to deal with potential repeats of the action in Ireland.

Ireland's police force, An Garda Siochana, has also declared an "exceptional event", making every officer available for weekend duty.

One of the protesters, farmer John Dallon said: "Maybe for another week, maybe two weeks. If it takes a month, we are prepared to sit here."

Christopher Duffy, a spokesman for Dublin's demonstrators, said the blockades would continue until there was a "serious reduction in our costs".