Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is half time for this Government. I once asked the Taoiseach, perhaps unkindly, whether he is a Cork Taoiseach or a Taoiseach who happens to be from Cork. That remains an open question. Under his tenure, I have watched Cork flourish, finally putting to bed the sad days of Ford and Dunlop. I know this was an era from which the Taoiseach's political philosophy was hewn and from which he draws. As a son of Cork, he has undoubtedly delivered for the city. This delivery reminds me of Michael Noonan's stalwart ability to bend the nation's spending towards Limerick. Sure is that not politics after all?

When asked what matters to him, the Taoiseach always says it is community, kith and kin, and GAA jerseys. I have often admired the intrinsically Irish qualities he possesses, although they have not always worked to my advantage or that of Waterford. He has accomplishments to point to on the national stage. His statesmanship has restored an empathy and character to politics here. This lies in stark contrast to the political misfortunes being visited on our traditional friends in Britain and the USA. His focus on housing and health and his refusal to resile from attending to the most intractable and meaningful deficiencies of the Republic are commendable, although change comes slowly.

It is worth reflecting on what his term in office means for the people I represent. He has been kind enough to meet me on a number of occasions and to support my access to senior Ministers and leading public servants. I have pressed, using wide evidence, the Waterford and south-east regional agenda to him and to others. That agenda includes equal healthcare provision in the acute hospital in the region, as demonstrated by the need to deliver 24-7 cardiac care; equal access to a university education; airport access for the region to the UK and beyond; and urban and rural regeneration, with focused development of the North Quays, along with the Abbey quarter and Trinity Wharf projects.

These are all projects that continue to lie just beyond the funding horizon as yet invisible to the naked eye. I contrast the Taoiseach's visible delivery for Cork with my hope, which at this point is all I have to hang onto for my efforts to date, that the initiatives for our hospital, university, airport and north quays developments will commence soon. It seems somewhat paradoxical that this hope has suddenly arisen in the dog days of the Taoiseach's term. Quarter 1 2023 appears to be D-day, or delivery day, for the revision and the revised administration to deliver cardiac care, the airport, the public private partnership buildings of the South East Technological University, SETU, and the north quays projects. Expectations are huge and continue to be so. A people who have been failed by national politics for a generation wait with bated breath.

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