Matt Shanahan accuses government of breaking UHW 24-7 promise

I feel like I'm flogging a dead doll with this one, but anyway, one last time with feeling, I suppose. I remember hearing an interview between news talk's Ciaran Cudahy and yourself. He kind of caught you off guard by asking you why you wanted to be Taoiseach. Your answer was simple, community, you said. I always felt you used the term community in the John McGarran sense. The close-knit bonds of tradition, shared experience and the familiarity of your own personal hinterland that shaped you deeply. Watching your career, it's apparent that the oppressive weight of Cork's expectations, its deep hurts, the poverty and the hopelessness that was seared with the sunbeam, Ford and Dunlop closures, as well as the gossipy smallness of that conservative little city's politics, made your brand of politics. For me, this explains why you felt it was okay to leave so much of the country unrepresented at Cabinet, and why a government endowed with an unprecedented capacity to spend could patronise Cork so unfairly. You might rationalise that as just doing what the Ross O'Carroll Kellys did for Dublin in the last government, but in truth, you have just reproduced the hurt, felt as a young Cork politician, reproduced them in other parts of the country, particularly the borders, the West Midlands and the South East. In other words, places that does not matter to this government. I think this was the dark side of the community that led you to renege on your promise to deliver 24-7 cardiac care to UHW and to the people of the South East. You met me first as a protester at Tarnista, campaigning for this vital service. Your fully broken promise restored a seat to your party in Waterford. Watching you and government sit on your hands during Confidence and Supply led me to stand for the people of Waterford and to promise to fight for this and other issues. We thought that having a party with the health portfolio, with RTD installed in the Department of Health, that 24-7 would finally be realised. And perhaps the Minister thought that too, repeatedly turning up on local Damien Thierry's radio show, renewing the forever broken promises of extended hours that have still not happened. T-shirt, as Maya Angelou wisely said, or tarnished, I should say, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. You have shown Tarnista, and we have no reason to not believe. I'm in state of shock at your description of Cork politics and the Cork psychology. I must invite you to Cork, Deputy Shanahan. You have had an obsession with Cork, which is quite interesting. I don't know who you've been working with in that, but I think there's a bit much to describe it now as kind of conservative, gossipy politics of the city of Cork. I think that's, a lot of Cork people will be offended by that. And the modern city of Cork is broad-minded. It's a great maritime city. It's open. It's inclusive. And I think culturally, in terms of Cork being the latest manifestation of the cultural richness of the city and so on. But I know you want to talk about Waterford, which I have a great affection for and belief in. Because I think, if I would criticise you once, I think you've been talking down Waterford too much and talking down the Southeast too much. And I think this government has invested very significantly in Waterford. I mean, the €170 million for the North Quay's development, that is transformative in the heart of the city. And I think I'm delighted with that. The Southeast Technological University, the establishment of it. You have to acknowledge, Deputy. And now lately, great news, the Veterinary College in Kildalton and the Pharmacy School College now founded in Waterford. I mean, and the purchase of the former Waterford Crystal site for campus expansion. And I was one of the first ministers to purchase land for the expansion of the university in Waterford. So I think those are very real achievements. And I think in themselves, we'll have to develop Waterford into the future and the Southeast more generally. There's a new surgical hub, new pathology lab on the way at the hospital. There's far extra numbers of staff over the last number of years recruited. We now have 2,796 people working in the hospital. Huge advancement in older care and in mental health in Waterford. And in terms of the CAT scan, the CAT lab itself, the second CAT lab is open, as you know. Monday to Friday for us, 8 to 8, with 24 additional staff secured. New 18 staff for the weekend cover to be completed. That will give us 90% coverage now, which is enormous progress than at the time of this government. And I want to pay tribute to Minister Mary Butler. I think the fact that she was appointed to the Minister for Health in the Department of the Ministry for Health has been very impactful for Waterford in terms of the second CAT lab. But also in terms of mental health more generally, in terms of the developments there, in particular around the ADHD team, for example, that has been appointed in the Waterford budget. And the crisis resolution team in mental health that has also been appointed. You have $7 million for Walsh Park. That stadium needed investment and growth. $14 million in sports capital overall. I accept an awful lot more needs to be done. But I would argue that the last four and a half years has witnessed probably the most significant investment in Waterford than any previous decade, collectively at one time. Deputy Shanahan. Your ability to extol a narrative that doesn't exist knows no bounds, to be honest with you. But specifically the issue I raise is, let me put it this way. When people go to bed at night in Cork, they have no worries about heart attack access. When people go to bed in Waterford in the southeast, they have significant worries, particularly those who have ongoing cardiac issues. In the last three months, I have three friends who have ended up in Waterford Hospital after hours at night with heart attack. All three went to Cork. Not one of them got there in under four hours from the time of presentation. You are a past Minister for Health. You know the clinical standard is 90 minutes, four hours means cardiac muscle damage. It means further ongoing complications. It means the shortening of life. Now, yourself and Deputy Butler stood in a photograph in 2016. And any innocence about what you promised has long since evaporated, to be quite frank with you. And as I said, you are a previous Health Minister. You know the importance of this. The people of Waterford in the southeast have no differing physiology to anybody else in this country. And it is palpably unfair that it has taken three and a half years to deliver a second cat lab. What was done in a private hospital in less than three months. We still don't have 24-7. We still don't even have a seven-day service. That's what I'm pointing out to you. And that is the record that you're finishing this government with. I think you have to acknowledge that in all of these matters in terms of cardiac care and so on, it's the clinicians set the standards. And that was something through the Chair that was agreed by most parties about 20-odd years ago, when there was political rows all over the place in terms of where various services were going to be located. The idea of national strategies in cancer and cardiovascular were developed, which have had huge impacts, the kind of impacts that I outlined earlier in response to another deputy. Those would not have happened if we didn't take politics out of health to a certain extent. I sense, just generally, if we make a point, that we're not bringing politics back into that. Would you address why the extra positions were in the HSE embargo? Why were they in the HSE embargo? We have gone back and gone back to clinicians to say we need to do this differently in Waterford. With the result that 90% coverage will be achieved in terms of the provision of the second cat lab and in particular in terms of staffing that will facilitate the weekend cover that will be key. And the clinicians there are saying, no, that will give you 90% coverage. Now, compared to where we were at the beginning of this government, I think, by any yardstick, that is significant progress, and very, very significant progress. There are positions there under the HSE embargo. Emergency appointments. Again, there have been recruitments. There will be further recruitment to the facility. Thank you. I appreciate the deputy's advocacy and so forth. Okay, that's good.