Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Shanahan will recall I met him when we visited WIT a few months ago and I visited the local authority. My sense of Waterford City and County Council is it is absolutely up for it. They are committed. They were all talking about how we put in the resources to make this happen.

There was an the event in Rosslare last week on the development of the port for offshore renewables. I do not know whether Deputy Shanahan attended but there were 150 people there. My sense is the community is right behind the opportunity that exists in the south-east as well as in other parts of the country to tap into that resource.

I remember, after meeting Deputy Shanahan in the Waterford local authority, we went down to the river with the county manager and we were looking at the site where we will put the new pedestrian and public transport bridge across the Suir. That is going to tender now. That is real. I could go on.

We will not work on the scale of the just transition jump we will have to make if any place is left behind. It has to belong to everyone and be involved everywhere. Waterford city, in mind, more than anywhere else, if I were to pick on the city, has a huge opportunity to become the capital of the south-east and to grow, particularly on the north quays and into Ferrybank. If there are Kilkenny Deputies here, I will be running into trouble but I see Waterford as a city that is primed-----

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