Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I previously raised my concerns to the effect that the 2024 budget is not good for Ireland. I might add that it was also not a good budget for my constituency of Waterford. As I outlined on budget day, this budget breaks the fiscal rules that have been adopted by the Government to control State spending. It breaks ranks with the advice from IFAC, a body we designed purposely to keep budgets and Government expenditure under close scrutiny. This is even more alarming when one considers the exceptional windfalls that we are presently receiving in corporation tax. In effect, we are actually operating a budget deficit without them. I also highlighted on budget day how it appears that every Department is getting a bump, as is every part of the Government, like they always do. I also described how the Government is giving out participation awards without any connection to performance or delivery, as well as how we have failed in a time of full employment not to consider the reallocation of other Government resources to Departments where they are badly needed. Nothing has been done in that regard.

I also highlighted how the south east, midlands and Border regions are not fully at this national "spendathon". GDP continues to fall in these regions. I know there will be journalists in Dublin who will say "Oh, here we go with parish politics yet again; displaying no understanding of national issues". I might ask the Minister of State, as well as the Government, what is more of a national issue to every taxpaying citizen of this country than understanding how their money is spent? What is wrong with people asking where the money is going? I cannot say with certainty where the money is going. Yet, I can say with absolute certainty where it is not going. It is certainly not coming to the south-east region. It is certainly not coming in any equitable form to my city and county of Waterford.

I will say to the Minister of State that large parts of Ireland are increasingly angry and marginalised by the parish-pump politics that is going on in the Cabinet at the moment, where the majority of spending is going between Dublin and Cork. You need to have spent a long time in the Dáil bubble to think it is a good idea to spend 50%, 60% and even 70% of all State capital investments in Dublin, where 29% of the population resides.

I am not sure if the Minister of State takes note of other financial advice that is independent to what the Government gets. I highlight the South East Economic Monitor, which is an academic journal that is published quarterly by three academics in Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, and has been going for quite a number of years. They go to all the individual competitive sectors within the south-east economy to understand how we are doing within the Government programme. I will send it to the Minister of State, and I hope he will bring it to the attention of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and the Minister for Finance, to understand the very significant shortcomings.

I will highlight a couple I have raised before in this House. There are nine model 4 hospitals in the country. University Hospital Waterford is the most efficient of them. I am sure the Minister of State knows the hospital quite well. It hospital stepped up to and beyond the mark to deal with fallout from the fire damage at Wexford General Hospital earlier in the year. Waterford had to take all the emergency department patients who would normally be sent to Wexford and triage them. The authorities there did that with no additional financial support from the Government, other than allowing some of the Wexford staff to go to Waterford. As part of that expenditure, they have built up a very significant accrual of costs. I understand it is more than €7 million. They have not been paid that by the Ireland East Hospital Group. That was an exceptional expenditure.

At the same time, they have had to close a unit they set up in Kilcreene. This was a surgical step-down unit with 12 beds and was costing approximately €1.7 million per year. It was doing really excellent work and taking a lot of pressure off the orthopaedic department and the main orthopaedic trauma unit at University Hospital Waterford. It was dealing with south-east patients, particularly those geriatric patients who required a lot of rehabilitation post-surgery. That unit has been shut down because we did not have the money to support it at the time of all thislargesse.

In addition, a capital spending programme was announced by the Government in July. The quantum of funding for that programme was €650 million. It was to be given to the nine model 4 hospitals. What happened? Eight of those hospitals shared that €650 million dividend. University Hospital Waterford, a hospital with the highest level of procedures in terms of staff ratio of any other hospital, was given nothing from that budget. There was nothing by way of capital spend, despite the fact that we have been crying out down there for five years for additional capital infrastructure and beds. We remain the least funded of all the model 4 hospitals in the country. There was no recognition whatsoever from the Government in the budget of that.

As the Minister of State is probably aware, no money was provided, in spite of a commitment by Government, which was repeatedly given here by the Tánaiste, Taoiseach and the Minister for Health, to open the seven-day cath lab service for emergency heart attack patients. Now, with the health recruitment freeze, that is still in abatement. The earliest it will be done will probably March, April or May of next year. That is a disgrace, particularly in view of the commitments that were given in this House.

I will also raise the issue of higher education. I am sure the Minister of State is well aware of the lofty promises made by his Government colleague, the Minister, Deputy Harris, to the south east when the amalgamation that gave rise to the creation of the South East Technological University was put forward. The highest functioning institute of technology in the country, WIT, was rammed into that association on the basis of transformational change. What transformation has occurred in the interim? There has been none. We have been excluded completely from national university spending. To date, the Government have now committed more than €700 million to national student accommodation, but this is solely for the national universities. The technological universities still have no borrowing framework in place to allow them to compete for any of that funding.

Bear in mind that Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, was the first institute of technology and the only one in the country to develop its own student accommodation more than 15 years ago and the thanks we got is to be excluded from all of that funding.

The other area I wish to point out to the Minister of State concerns, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and the roads budget. Is the Minister of State aware what Waterford got in the roads budget from the Department of Transport this year? It received €1 million to scope out a BusConnects service for the region. Let me compare that to what Cork got. It received over €1 billion from the transport fund to develop the Dunkettle interchange, the Ringaskiddy bypass, the Dublin to Limerick motorway and to look at electrification and light rail in Cork city. There is a significant and gaping disparity in the treatment by the Government of the regions and I am only talking about the south east. To be fair to the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Harkin, I heard her speak only in the past week or ten days about her own region of the north west and the Border area. We need to have a proper functioning dashboard by way of understanding where the Government funding goes.

I brought a Private Members' Bill, with the support of the Regional Group, to this House two weeks ago, the Capital Supply Service and Purpose Report Bill, which would give a look back on all capital spending five years from the date of reporting. That will hopefully go to Committee Stage and I hope to see that Bill progressed and enacted. Until we have something better than what we have now, what has taken place at Cabinet over the past three and half years and what is likely for the next six to 12 months of this Government, will continue without reform it would appear. I do not know how the Government expects to stand in the regions after all of this capital has been washed through the system, and it saying what it has delivered for the country.

I welcome the cost-of-living supports but we need strategic infrastructure drivers to help the regions to compete on a level with the very large urban centres. That is not happening. We are getting political patronage which is running wild at this stage. I ask that the Minister of State take this point up with his colleagues.

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