A Waterford TD has claimed that taxpayer's money is being spent inequally.
Deputy Matt Shanahan told the Dail that 70 per cent of capital spending is being directed towards Dublin and Cork.
He says Waterford isn't seeing enough investment in terms of the county's needs.
“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, Deputy Shanahan said. “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.”
“There are nine model 4 hospitals in the country. University Hospital Waterford is the most efficient of them. It stepped up to and beyond the mark to deal with fallout from the fire damage at Wexford General Hospital earlier in the year 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,” Deputy Shanahan said.
“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.”
Deputy Shanahan then accused the Government of “political patronage”, saying that it is “running wild at this stage”.
Speaking afterwards, he doubled down on his words saying that it was clear that the “gloves need to come off now” or Waterford would continue to fall behind the rest of the country.
“Some of my local counterparts like to accuse me of negativity and “giving out too much” but the people of Waterford need to understand that we are getting crumbs from a feast, and being asked to be grateful for them,” Deputy Shanahan said. “I have sent a copy of the latest South East Economic Monitor report to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Finance Ministers to make them realise the significant funding and regional performance imbalance and advised them that unless serious funding deficits are addressed, the electorate in Waterford will turn their back on this Government in massive numbers.”
