Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I remind the Taoiseach of the words he delivered in Waterford in July 2017, when he signalled he was the future. He said, "So long as I am Taoiseach Waterford will not be neglected or forgotten." I remember well the hope his speech inspired as a signal that the vicious perishing unleashed by the Administration of his predecessor, Enda Kenny, was coming to an end. We surveyed the wreckage of the then Government's disastrous hospital groups strategy, which had led to the chaotic asset-stripping of our regional hospital system by a parochial Cork. That left us with what is still the worst funded model 4 hospital in the country: an outlier with the lowest ratio of staff and beds to citizens and patients of any model 4 hospital. For the Taoiseach's information, by some margin Cork hospital is the best resourced model 4 hospital in the group. It is odd that we never hear much about the best and worst resourced parts of our public sector. Precious little comparative data is ever made public by the Government.

Of course, the Taoiseach knows all of this. He knows what his successive Administrations have done in Waterford and done to Waterford. That is likely why his party, which in 2011 had half of the seats in the south-east region, or seven of the 14 available, today has just two. He knows the data on health spending and he knows the efficient and the competent versus the incompetent and the wasteful. He certainly knows well run from mismanaged. He is also acutely aware of the politically protected parts of our public sector. Those outside such protections are fair game for the plucking. After 12 years, I think it is fair to say the Taoiseach also knows the shell game of commissioning a report to hide a political decision he or his Government cannot defend. The trouble is that we in Waterford know it too.

Will the Taoiseach deliver 24-7 cardiac care to Waterford and the south-east region before the end of this Government? Will he give a commitment to that? His Government still stands behind the Herity report, which was commissioned in 2015 and is a shoddy and shocking piece of work that got basic facts completely wrong. In fact, there still remains a typo in the headline title. With Dr. Herity's abysmal efforts blown out of the water, the Taoiseach's Government commissioned a national review of specialist cardiac services, which started its work in 2018, over five years ago - six months, in fact, after the Taoiseach's "Waterford will not be neglected" speech. Five years have passed, and we have never heard from it again. When will the Taoiseach's Government stop protecting Cork consultants' private practices? When will the people of Waterford and its surrounds have an equitable, 24-7, lifesaving standard of emergency cardiac care at University Hospital Waterford?

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