Infrastructure development is really important and is obviously important for every city, county and constituency, so I wish to raise infrastructure development for Waterford city and county and the wider south east. The North Quays development has received significant Government funding so I want to start by acknowledging that. However, I also have to say to the Minister that, per capita, the south east and Waterford are not getting their fair share and have not been getting their fair share of capital funding for a long number of years. Even over the past year, I have raised so many different issues. I will start with the N24 Waterford to Limerick road. What is really disheartening about that project is it is not a great road. I know a lot of people who use it every day. It is very dangerous and needs to be upgraded. The preferred route is in place. A lot of work was done and then, lo and behold, the Government simply stopped the funding and for the past two years, no funding has gone to that project. The local authorities have been screaming at the Government to provide the funding because of road safety issues and because it is an economic corridor between Waterford and the south east. It is the same with the N25, the Waterford to Cork road. Again, it has not received any funding. I was blue in the face in this Chamber raising the need for State investment in Waterford Airport. The Government made us jump over hurdles and jump through hoops. It delayed and delayed, and it got to the point that a venture between a private consortium, the three local authorities in the region and the State collapsed. A private investor had to come in from outside the country, by the way, to put money on the table to build a runway extension that this Government simply failed to do. We also have the case of the South East Technological University, SETU, which has had to wait years for an engineering block. We are now told funding will come for a One Health building and a pharmacy building in Waterford, but that will take years. Appraisals and business cases have been done and they are sent up to the Department. All of that gets put through all sorts of processes and there is no clarity as to when that funding will be made available. I have also been raising issues around Waterford Port and the need to invest in it. It has given good, ambitious plans for offshore renewable energy to the Government but funding has not been made available. I also raise with the Minister an important project I have worked with and also visited a number of times in recent years. Naíonra Philib Barún is home to over 20 young children in Tramore in County Waterford. It does not have a proper building and is housed in a prefab. It is a very small, tight space. It needs capital funding for a new project but because the students are in early childhood care and education, ECCE, they fall through all the cracks. Nobody seems to want to fund it. Unfortunately, these children are being taught and having their preschool in this unsuitable prefab. The south east is not getting its fair share. I have given the Minister a list of projects, for which I and others have been campaigning and looking for Government funding, and what we have got is a stone wall of resistance.

Sentiment score: -0.02