Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Regional Group, I welcome Deputy Bacik. I am sure she will make a fine contribution to this Dáil.

I have a strange request to make of the Taoiseach. I ask him to please consider pausing the development of the national maternity hospital at St. Vincent's University Hospital and of the Cork elective hospital until we have appropriate project management budgeting and oversight. I make this remarkable request because, as a Deputy, I am notionally charged with providing parliamentary oversight on public spending. Budget 2022 is being framed at the moment, as is the review of the Project Ireland 2040 capital projects, and this Dáil knows virtually nothing of these plans. Parliamentary questions are answered glibly or not at all. Ministers usually refuse to address the question asked. The Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General only look at the spilled milk they can find and, from next Monday onwards, even that thin oversight will hibernate until autumn.

There is more drone footage than there are spreadsheets in the Project Ireland 2040 plans. It is impossible to see where public money goes. Is that because it suits those at Cabinet? Is the bulk of discretionary spending being funnelled into Dublin and Cork, which are home to almost all the Ministers? Do not tell me I am wrong. I call on the Taoiseach to namecheck some projects and show me where the money is going. I call on him to publish proper, granular data on public spending, particularly for capital projects. Vast parts of Ireland are frozen out of a fair share of capital spending and are fobbed off by tokenistic urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, funding, when the billion euro projects flow to Cork and Dublin. With €10 billion of capital expenditure this year, the south east should be getting €890 million and Waterford should be getting €230 million. There are no significant projects currently being implemented in the south east. Níl rud ar bith le feiceáil. There is none, nothing, nadain respect of all core regional issues, including our hospital and university, the M24 motorway, the north quays, our railways, port and airport. The Government, like almost every Government before it, has slow-walked every strategic project from the south east while nursing along its own pet projects. We would make wiser decisions about spending if the people could see where their money is going. That is what I am asking the Taoiseach to implement.

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