Let me, first, put my green credentials on the record. I have sold commercial green energy solutions. I was part of a consortium that successfully lobbied in Brussels for changes to alternative fuel feedstock specifications. I am no climate denier.

The Minister has warned us on many occasions about the urgent need to address climate change and I have a warning of sorts for him. I have outlined in this House to both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste the lack of funding that is being directed to the south-east region and its population. As a partner in government, the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, bears responsibility for this also.

The Minister is almost half-way through his Government term and the pattern is now set. We have seen the Minister in action. We have seen what the Minister really cares about. At this point, it is my view that the Minister has lost the south-east region and that at the next election, the voters of the south-east will turn away from him and, more importantly, from his green agenda.

The Green movement received a mandate from the south-east. Ten per cent of the country has given the Greens two of its Dáil seats. That is the same mandate given to Fine Gael. If the south-east turns on the Minister, it will not be because of climate change denial but because of the Minister's failure to deliver on the mandate entrusted to him.

Job number one of this Government and Deputy Eamon Ryan's Department was the Dunkettle interchange signed off with undue haste. Deputy Eamon Ryan bent to the Cork cabal with what, in percentage terms, is a project further out of budgetary control than the national children's hospital. Meanwhile, the M24 Limerick-Cork-Wexford pivotal route infrastructure for the south-east was binned. An entirely preventable blood price continues to be paid on the N24 and N25 for spending decisions made in this House by the Department, and now by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Waterford Airport is fighting for its life, closed off from regional airport funding of €160 million which is being bunged largely into dysfunctional DAA outfits and disproportionately into Cork Airport in what was the fastest capital project completed in the State. At the same time, Deputy Eamon Ryan's Department withdrew all support funding previously committed to at Waterford Airport which is now threatening its very existence. In University Hospital Waterford, the south-east regional trauma and cardiac centre continues to be starved of capital resources and head count and continues to have one of the highest outpatient lists in the country and there is still no relief in sight coming for the most underfunded model 4 hospital in the State. This is what the voters of the south-east see when they think, "Want Green, Vote Green".

We also see the Minister's partners in government strategy of waiting him out on the M20, the Shannon liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminal, Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, and other multiple initiatives. Failure to deliver for the south-east these things that are commonly being delivered elsewhere will, in my opinion, implode Green politics in the region. Mark my words, the south-east is not at Cabinet and yet, day by day, we look on appalled by Deputy Eamon Ryan's Government's decision-making and the inequity around it. My question to the Minister is, in the remaining time of the Government, what will he deliver for this region, a region that has given him his mandate.

No Deputy in this House needs to explain, burnish or think one is better than the other in terms of green credentials. Like in our country, there is broad consensus and understanding that the science is real on the likes of climate change and we must act. I read in detail, as well as attending, some of the debates yesterday, and while there was heated debate and discussion on some of the policy solutions, on the underlying problem everyone, including Deputies from the Rural Independent Group when I read their debate contribution yesterday, agreed that we must address this environmental challenge in front of us. Not a single Deputy, in reading the full extracts yesterday, did I read stating we do not have to act.

Leave the people who cut their turf alone.

Please.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae's brother yesterday, in his contribution, as I recall reading it, recognised that electric vehicles are the better cars and that we need to make this switch.

I would say the Minister must get glasses because that is not what he said.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae can read "the blacks".

Can we go back to Deputy Shanahan?

To make the point, this does not belong to any one party, Independent or otherwise.

It belongs to Deputy Eamon Ryan.

Please.

It will not work if we are pointing the finger at one person versus the other.

The tail wagging the dog.

Deputy Shanahan will recall I met him when we visited WIT a few months ago and I visited the local authority. My sense of Waterford City and County Council is it is absolutely up for it. They are committed. They were all talking about how we put in the resources to make this happen.

There was an event in Rosslare last week on the development of the port for offshore renewables. I do not know whether Deputy Shanahan attended but there were 150 people there. My sense is the community is right behind the opportunity that exists in the south-east as well as in other parts of the country to tap into that resource.

I remember, after meeting Deputy Shanahan in the Waterford local authority, we went down to the river with the county manager and we were looking at the site where we will put the new pedestrian and public transport bridge across the Suir. That is going to tender now. That is real. I could go on.

We will not work on the scale of the just transition jump we will have to make if any place is left behind. It has to belong to everyone and be involved everywhere. Waterford city, in mind, more than anywhere else, if I were to pick on the city, has a huge opportunity to become the capital of the south-east and to grow, particularly on the north quays and into Ferrybank. If there are Kilkenny Deputies here, I will be running into trouble but I see Waterford as a city that is primed-----

Do not forget Tipperary.

----- to develop as a sustainable centre. It is already happening. I note the amount of jobs that have been delivered in Waterford in the past year and they are the type of jobs, the type of people and the type of companies that want to be part of this green transition.

I fundamentally disagree with the analysis that we are not looking to the south-east as part of this transition. My Department and, certainly, my party will do everything to get the jobs, the investment and the good local environment in the south-east for the good of the people as well as the wider global challenge we must face.

The Minister would try to sell sand in the Sahara.

I thank the Minister. Indeed, I accompanied the Minister on those initiatives that he discussed, but I say to him: resources, resources, resources. I have seen more reports about the south-east at this stage; I could walk on the paper of them from Waterford to Dublin.

It is across the river to Deputy Shanahan.

There is no delivery. The Minister confuses the green agenda with a Government agenda of delivery. The only boots that we have on the ground in the south-east is a chain of chemists and although all of the projects that the Minister has outlined are laudable, none of them is under way as yet. We are being promised, promised, promised. Funding to our airport has not occurred. Funding to our hospital has not occurred. Funding to the IT has not yet occurred. Funding for the north quays, although promised, has not yet been released.

Where is the Minister of State, Deputy Butler?

The Minister has two-and-a-half years done in this Government. I have asked the Minister if he will commit to the delivery not only of the green agenda but to the social and economic agenda of Waterford that it has been crying out for and it has deserved. It has been denied for the past 20 years.

Some of my colleagues' words are ringing in my ears to point out the truth, as I understand it, that the emergency department in Waterford Hospital is the top-rated in the country.

And the most underfunded.

But, if I am a patient, what I want is to be in the very best centre.

What about 24-hour cardiac care?

What I hear told is that Waterford is the best.

We have the longest waiting list of any in the country.

The best. I am also told-----

The Minister cannot believe all he is told.

It is the most underfunded model 4 hospital in the country. It is patently obvious we are very efficient but we are totally under resourced.

Allow the Minister to respond.

I am also told that second cath lab is under construction as we speak. That is an example of resources being deployed. Does the Deputy agree?

The commitment for that cath lab was given in 2010.

It is an example of resources being deployed. It is being built as we speak. A third example is something that was requested for a long time. Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT, has university status. Has that not been delivered during the lifetime of this Government?

That facility did not receive investment for 20 years.

This Government delivered it.

The sense I got when we were at that meeting in the boardroom of WIT with the directors of services of the university - there is now a university in Waterford - is that they are good people with real skills. I agree with the Deputy that funding ought to have been provided for the resources referred to. We agree on that point. However, the Deputy should not underestimate the skills in that institution. He should not underestimate the rise of Waterford-----

I do not underestimate Waterford at all.

-----under this green agenda. That is the story of our future.