On behalf of the Regional Group, I welcome Deputy Bacik. I am sure she will make a fine contribution to this Dáil.

I have a strange request to make of the Taoiseach. I ask him to please consider pausing the development of the national maternity hospital at St. Vincent's University Hospital and of the Cork elective hospital until we have appropriate project management budgeting and oversight. I make this remarkable request because, as a Deputy, I am notionally charged with providing parliamentary oversight on public spending. Budget 2022 is being framed at the moment, as is the review of the Project Ireland 2040 capital projects, and this Dáil knows virtually nothing of these plans. Parliamentary questions are answered glibly or not at all. Ministers usually refuse to address the question asked. The Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General only look at the spilled milk they can find and, from next Monday onwards, even that thin oversight will hibernate until autumn.

There is more drone footage than there are spreadsheets in the Project Ireland 2040 plans. It is impossible to see where public money goes. Is that because it suits those at Cabinet? Is the bulk of discretionary spending being funnelled into Dublin and Cork, which are home to almost all the Ministers? Do not tell me I am wrong. I call on the Taoiseach to namecheck some projects and show me where the money is going. I call on him to publish proper, granular data on public spending, particularly for capital projects. Vast parts of Ireland are frozen out of a fair share of capital spending and are fobbed off by tokenistic urban regeneration and development fund, URDF, funding, when the billion euro projects flow to Cork and Dublin. With €10 billion of capital expenditure this year, the south east should be getting €890 million and Waterford should be getting €230 million. There are no significant projects currently being implemented in the south east. Níl rud ar bith le feiceáil. There is none, nothing, nada in respect of all core regional issues, including our hospital and university, the M24 motorway, the north quays, our railways, port and airport. The Government, like almost every Government before it, has slow-walked every strategic project from the south east while nursing along its own pet projects. We would make wiser decisions about spending if the people could see where their money is going. That is what I am asking the Taoiseach to implement.

The need for a national maternity hospital is without question. The women of Ireland need a modern national maternity hospital providing the best of care at a tertiary level. The current conditions are simply not good enough or tenable into the future and cannot be sustained. We need a new national maternity hospital. In terms of value for money, the procurement provisions in public expenditure will have to apply. That is why I desist from global figures and from saying it will cost this or that. It should very much depend on the tendering operation and a detailed specification before any global figures are referenced in respect of a project of the scale of a national maternity hospital. We need that hospital and the women of Ireland need it without question.

The Deputy asked about funding for the south east. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has been extremely assertive in respect of Waterford and the south east more generally, as have Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, and others.

I was somewhat surprised when the Deputy called the URDF money tokenistic. It must be accepted that the €190 million disbursed from the fund to date is not tokenistic. That is substantial funding. On regional investment in jobs in County Waterford, the regional enterprise plan for the south east is currently being developed by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Tánaiste and Minister of State, Deputy Troy, working closely with the south-east committee. The plan is building on successful clusters in the region in life sciences, pharmaceuticals, medical technologies, biopharma, agrifood, engineering, financial services, technology and international business services. The Technological University of South-East Ireland project has progressed. The university is vital and significant for the region and funding will accompany its development.

It is interesting that employment in IDA Ireland-supported companies has increased by 2.8% in the south east. Approximately 13,461 people are working in 74 such companies. Foreign direct investment, FDI, employment in the south east is now at a ten-year high. We must keep on developing that, however. That is why advanced properties are being developed by IDA Ireland to attract new investment to the region.

As the Deputy may be aware, there was a very welcome announcement recently of 90 jobs by Horizon Therapeutics for County Waterford. Enterprise Ireland is also supporting clients. The south east was one of the few regions with positive employment growth of in 2020. That growth amounted to 2%. As the Deputy will know, progress has been made in respect of the catheterisation laboratory, although it took time. It is expected that the main contractor will hand over the project by the end of June 2022, which is welcome. We will continue to allocate significant funding to the south east into the future.

I do not think anybody would argue that there is a need for a children's hospital but I doubt anybody would agree that we need to spend close to €2 billion providing it. Our country has paid a high price for repeatedly stuffing up its finances. Our methods of oversight are not up to the task and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, as good as it is, is no match for the scale and ambition of and responsibilities relating to public expenditure. We will be back in the ha'penny place very shortly if we fritter away this public money on political codology and strokes.

An OECD study of budget oversight by the Oireachtas published in 2000 said we - as in Oireachtas Members - did not engage with the budget in a meaningful or impactful way. We still need better budgeting procedures and information. In 500 days or so, the Taoiseach will handle over his office to another person. I offer him the advice that instituting proper reporting on sectoral and regional spending would be an enduring legacy. I ask the Taoiseach to investigate actions that can deliver such a legacy of equity and fairness to the Irish people, particularly those who live in the south east.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. Value for public expenditure is very important. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, is both keenly aware of and focused on that and has already taken a range of measures and decisions to provide for it.

I reassure the Deputy that the Government is absolutely committed to the south east. That is evidenced by the overall funding that has been allocated to County Waterford under urban regeneration and our working with the council chief executive in terms of the north quays project, notwithstanding the recent difficulties there. The funding was allocated in advance in respect of that project and the difficulties relating to it have not been on the State's side. We are working with the council to advance the project. Across the industrial and higher education sectors and in the context of a range of other projects, the Government will continue to support the economic needs of the entire south east region, including County Waterford, obviously, counties Carlow, Kilkenny and Wexford and so on.

I thank the Taoiseach. Deputy Shanahan raised the question about responses to parliamentary questions. I must say that in recent years, I would have considered in general that the quality of responses to parliamentary questions has improved. I will bring to the attention of the Deputy and of all Members that Standing Order 54 provides an avenue for Deputies who are dissatisfied with how questions are dealt with to refer them to my office. I am more than happy to deal with such referrals.