Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Beyond that, the PPP for our engineering building in Waterford Institute of Technology was actually granted planning permission in 2008. In 2020, I had the pleasure of coming into the Government here to see that project sidestepped while other PPP projects in Cork and Dublin, to the tune of €330 million, were advanced. This is what I am talking about.

The Taoiseach said we are under pressure in Waterford hospital at the moment. I was down there the other day for a ten-year project to move community services out of it. We could only manage to put out a tender to put a roof on a building, and we did not decide to even try to get the building developed so we can move out to get these beds that we need. At this juncture, we do not have a solution to extend the cardiac service because we do not have a dedicated beds solution.

I asked the estates section and I asked the Minister about supplying modular refits to get that done but that is not on the agenda. To be fair, I hear what the Taoiseach is saying about some type of levelling up but we have a long way to go to get there. The capital tracker shows the delay and the lack of funding. We have 9.8% of the population but we are not getting 9.8% of the capital funding.

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