Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Let me, first, put my green credentials on the record. I have sold commercial green energy solutions. I was part of a consortium that successfully lobbied in Brussels for changes to alternative fuel feedstock specifications. I am no climate denier.

The Minister has warned us on many occasions about the urgent need to address climate change and I have a warning of sorts for him. I have outlined in this House to both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste the lack of funding that is being directed to the south-east region and its population. As a partner in government, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, bears responsibility for this also.

The Minister is almost half-way through his Government term and the pattern is now set. We have seen the Minister in action. We have seen what the Minister really cares about. At this point, it is my view that the Minister has lost the south-east region and that at the next election, the voters of the south-east will turn away from him and, more importantly, from his green agenda.

The Green movement received a mandate from the south-east. Ten per cent of the country has given the Greens two of its Dáil seats. That is the same mandate given to Fine Gael. If the south-east turns on the Minister, it will not be because of climate change denial but because of the Minister's failure to deliver on the mandate entrusted to him.

Job number one of this Government and Deputy Eamon Ryan's Department was the Dunkettle interchange signed off with undue haste. Deputy Eamon Ryan bent to the Cork cabal with what, in percentage terms, is a project further out of budgetary control than the national children's hospital. Meanwhile, the M24 Limerick-Cork-Wexford pivotal route infrastructure for the south-east was binned. An entirely preventable blood price continues to be paid on the N24 and N25 for spending decisions made in this House by the Department, and now by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Waterford Airport is fighting for its life, closed off from regional airport funding of €160 million which is being bunged largely into dysfunctional DAA outfits and disproportionately into Cork Airport in what was the fastest capital project completed in the State. At the same time, Deputy Eamon Ryan's Department withdrew all support funding previously committed to at Waterford Airport which is now threatening its very existence. In University Hospital Waterford, the south-east regional trauma and cardiac centre continues to be starved of capital resources and head count and continues to have one of the highest outpatient lists in the country and there is still no relief in sight coming for the most underfunded model 4 hospital in the State. This is what the voters of the south-east see when they think, "Want Green, Vote Green".

We also see the Minister's partners in government strategy of waiting him out on the M20, the Shannon liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminal, Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, and other multiple initiatives. Failure to deliver for the south-east these things that are commonly being delivered elsewhere will, in my opinion, implode Green politics in the region. Mark my words, the south-east is not at Cabinet and yet, day by day, we look on appalled by Deputy Eamon Ryan's Government's decision-making and the inequity around it. My question to the Minister is, in the remaining time of the Government, what will he deliver for this region, a region that has given him his mandate.

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