As a historian, long before he became our Taoiseach, the Taoiseach must have thought about what his enduring legacy might be. I used to think the oft-quoted Fianna Fáil reflection on Government as "senior hurling" was about political competition, the training and effort taken, the resilience and gumption required and the skill of our national sport, not that our Cabinet members tog out in their individual county jerseys. The mean-spirited question I have for the Taoiseach, for which I apologise in advance, is whether he is a Cork Taoiseach or a Taoiseach who just happens to be from Cork.

I ask this grim but important question because we are now half way into his term as Taoiseach and in that time we have seen two budgets and the revised national development plan. I remind the Taoiseach of a pre-election promise he made to the people of the south east in 2016. He promised to provide 24-7 cardiac care to the south-east region. That year he stood for a picture on the grounds of University Hospital Waterford, UHW, with his candidate and all his Fianna Fáil councillors and committed to delivering 24-7 services. That picture was at the centre of the Taoiseach's 2016 campaign. It was the photo that restored a seat to his party in Waterford. The Taoiseach did not stand and promise another study, review or investigation. He deliberately stood on the grounds of UHW and committed to deliver a long-promised life-saving service and one which is available to people in every region of the country except those of us in the south east.

In the preceding general election of 2011, Enda Kenny pledged the south east a full university and with that promise he took half of the seats in the region, that is, seven out of 14. However, in power, he resiled from that promise. His party, Fine Gael, now has just two of those 14 seats while we in the region were left to pick up the massive economic and social costs of that lost decade. This is heartbreaking when we see Grangegorman springing to life.

At this point in time, the Taoiseach's legacy in the south east is from his time as Minister for Education and Science when, under pressure from Cork, he undid the institute of technology upgrade in 1997.

In the south-east region and in Waterford, Enda Kenny's legacy is entirely framed by his unkept promise, his broken word. I have a simple question for the Taoiseach. Will there be a 24-7 cardiac care service, a service available in every other region in Ireland, in the south east before he leaves the Taoiseach's office? Will he be keeping his promise?

When I was a history student, the first thing I was told was that one should always endeavour to be objective in terms of one's historical narrative, to try to see all sides of the story and the equation and not to view things through the prism of one's own narrow perspective or partisan view of things. I recall that when I was the Minister for Education and Science, many of the institutes of technology or the then regional technical colleges were looking for status upgrades and so on. I recall looking at the plant, at the actual buildings, and saying that it would be better to invest substantially in the capacity of the colleges. My legacy in Waterford was buying the additional land which has guaranteed, since the late 1990s, the very significant expansion of Waterford Institute of Technology to such an extent that, under international peer review, it can compete to be a university and will become a technological university. That is the way universities should become universities. It should not be at the whim of politicians arriving at some platform and announcing that they are going to make a body into a university, with no regard for capacity or a whole range of investments that should happen in advance. That is the approach I took as Minister for Education and Science. We had a binary system but we set up a peer review and have provided for technological universities to happen. Successive Ministers have progressed the idea of developing institutes of technology into technological universities and doing so in a way that is fair and that has credibility internationally. When it has credibility internationally, the region benefits in terms of more investment. The Waterford Institute of Technology has really advanced over the last decade or two and has developed significant specialties, not least in the areas of enterprise and industry and quite a number of foreign direct investments have occurred as a result of that.

I would say that the time has come to talk up Waterford and its third level institution because it has a lot to commend itself. That is what I would do. I have great belief in that institute and I believe that along with Carlow Institute of Technology, it is going to become a technological university, which is great for the region. We are committed to doing that and to the consequential investments that will be required of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris.

In respect of the hospital, Deputy Shanahan's constituency colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Butler, has been tenacious and alongside the Deputy and others, is determined to advance the situation with regard to the cath lab and cardiac cover. The programme for Government commits to the delivery of a second cath lab in University Hospital Waterford. Funding has been allocated and the contractor for the construction of the new lab was formally appointed in March. The project commenced in May of this year, with a work programme of around 13 months. The equipping and staffing of the lab is provided for and will happen.

The Taoiseach has spectacularly failed to answer the question I asked. What I take from that is that his hard answer is "No" and that he will leave office in December 2022, in 14 months, without that promise to the people of the south east being kept. Other promises in the programme for Government are being kept, despite the incredible challenges of Covid but if the Taoiseach's promise on 24-7 cardiac care for the south east is not kept then politics in this country is broken, frankly. There are huge swaths of the country that feel unrepresented by the current Cork-Dublin Cabinet. Reasonable and necessary things, life-saving things like 24-7 cardiac care in the south east, are not being delivered and cannot get done. The Taoiseach is halfway into his term at this stage but he still has time if he decides to take action. His legacy and possibly that of his party in the south east will be the promises made on the cardiac issue to stoke up political support and whether the Taoiseach is a man of his word and will deliver on them.

We are going to dramatically expand cardiac provision as Deputy Shanahan knows. It is provided for and-----

What about 24-7 services?

We need to get the second cath lab built and staffed.

That is how to progress it and get a 24-hour service. You have to progress it. The Deputy knows that at this stage-----

Make the commitment. We want to see the commitment.

------through all the deliberations that we have been through. University Hospital Waterford is commencing the recruitment of the required staff right now for the second catheterisation lab in the coming months. That is a massive improvement. The Deputy knows the arrangement for intervention cardiology and diagnostic elective procedures between UHW and UPMC in Waterford and the service-level agreement that has been arrived at. He also knows that for the North Quays, the largest ever investment by a government in Waterford was announced and committed to.

We are speaking about the hospital, not the North Quays.

The Deputy is talking about and creating a narrative of partisan investment in different parts of the country. There is huge investment committed to, announced and allocated to Waterford in terms of the physical infrastructure of the North Quays, investment in the hospital and the new technological university, which will be very beneficial to the region.