Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This programme for Government offers absolutely nothing new or different from what we have come to expect from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in coalition. It is almost a carbon copy of the programme for Government that was presented to us five years ago, a copy-and-paste job majoring in previously unmet targets and unfulfilled commitments. The lack of vision, ambition or urgency is a charter for failure. It seems the only thing that the coalition parties have learned from their last term in government is to avoid that failure or to mitigate it by setting the bar as low as possible. The few commitments that are made in the document are so vague as to be meaningless. The word "review" gets a fair outing and is much used throughout it.

The promise of 24-7 cardiac care at University Hospital Waterford has gone unfulfilled over the last two Governments, despite the glaring need for such a service and the huge campaign that has galvanised opinion across the south east. As things stand, emergency cardiac care is not available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This level of service has been available in other regions as a given for many years. The attitude of the Government is clear. If you are going to have a heart attack in Waterford or the wider south east, you had better schedule it between the hours of 8 a.m to 8 p.m. This is simply not good enough. The Taoiseach stood outside UHW eight years ago during an election campaign and promised that his party in government would deliver 24-7 cardiac care in UHW. That promise, as yet unfulfilled, seems to have been quietly dropped as the new programme for Government contains no mention of cardiac care at UHW, let alone a commitment. Despite the fact that two Waterford TDs, as they took every opportunity to tell everybody, were centrally involved in negotiating this programme for Government, this is a failure in anyone's terms. Weak promises built upon policy that is already there is not good enough. The people of Waterford have waited too long for around-the-clock 24-7 cardiac care. It is not surprising that even though the county had two TDs involved in negotiating that programme, it still has not materialised.

The programme for Government also fails when it comes to transport. The N25 was allowed to quietly slip off the funding agenda on the last Government's watch. The N25 runs from Rosslare to Cork and forms the transport spine of County Waterford running from east to west. It seems to have totally fallen off the radar when it came to negotiating this programme for Government. Were the two Waterford negotiators simply not paying attention or did they believe that this national primary road is not in need of safety upgrades? The Irish Times named the N25 as the most dangerous national primary route in the State. In fact, two of the five most dangerous national roads in the State, the N25 and N24, pass through Waterford. Both were mentioned already in these statements. There are frequent crashes on numerous stretches of the road, in particular in the middle of the county and in west Waterford. The statistics speak for themselves. As a Government Deputy said earlier, it seems the NTA has been utterly rudderless politically and that this will remain the case if we are to take our lead from the programme for Government.

An rud eile a chaithfidh mé labhairt faoi ná tithíocht inacmhainne i nGaeltacht na Déise. Tá géarghá le tithíocht inacmhainne ar mhaithe le clainne óga ó Ghaeltacht na nDéise atá ag iarraidh maireachtaint ina gceantair féin, Gaelainn a labhairt agus a gcuid páistí a thógaint trí mheán na Gaelainne. Tá an ceart sin acu ach níl na tithe ann chun gur féidir leo é sin a dhéanamh. Níl faic sa chlár seo mar gheall ar thithíocht inacmhainne i gceantar Gaeltachta ar bith agus tá géarghá leis. Is teip ar theip ar theip atá sa chlár seo. Cuireann sé díomá ollmhór orm nach bhfuil sé seo léirithe sa chlár Rialtais agus nach bhfuil aon dul chun cinn le tarlú faoin Rialtas seo. Tá mé ag impí ar an Rialtas agus ar an Aire Gaeltachta nua dul i ngleic leis an ngéarchéim seo agus, cé nach bhfuil sé sa chlár Rialtais, cinnte a dhéanamh go bhfuil sé mar sprioc ann.

See this speech in context