It may be somewhat harsh but possibly fair to say the Government is not particularly loved or cherished by the people. Most, I suppose, are not. I recently went back to review the relevant Fine Gael manifesto, remembering the deep sense of political change I hoped for when there was a change of Government in 2011. It is the document of a party that spent a long time wondering what it would do when in power. It is loaded with brave, fresh ideas to remake the country. It has to be said it has an awful bang of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party off it-----

That is a new one.

-----particularly Enda Kenny’s opening comments that the pre-existing political culture had abandoned the principles underpinning the Republic that Fine Gael founded in 1949, had distorted the power and resources of the State for the benefit of the few, not the many, and had allowed the interests of citizens to be pushed behind those of powerful elites. Those are strong words which speak to ethics, ambition and hope. Was this just the stuff politicians say to win elections? It certainly worked in the south east, winning Fine Gael seven of the 14 available seats. A decade later, two seats are left.

I was in the House yesterday for the Taoiseach’s somewhat dismissive exchange with Deputy Harkin at Leaders' Questions. The Deputy presented cold, hard, irrefutable facts that show the economic disparity in the north west, just like the Border, midlands and south east. The Taoiseach’s response to those fact-based points was to throw out anecdotes. I have seen that playbook in action before; it is the one I get when I make the economic disparity case for Waterford and the south east in this House. However, the facts are clear. The Government continues to ignore its own national planning framework along with its Ireland 2040 plan. It stuffs every game-changing project into Cork and Dublin, both now severely bloated and suffering from what can only be diagnosed as chronic economic affluenza.

The 2011 promises to the south east have turned to dust. The M24 motorway has vanished; inserted in its stead are the new M28 Ringaskiddy motorway and the outlandish €400 million Dunkettle roundabout, both proceeding at pace. Hundreds of millions have been spent to provide state aid and subsidies to regional airports, but Waterford Airport is constructively shuttered. The provision of 24-7 cardiac care is consistently frustrated against a backdrop of ivory backscratchers in the national children’s hospital. There have been no new courses or buildings for Waterford’s university after Fine Gael having been in power for 12 years. Nowhere does the manifesto say to spend a disproportionate amount of public money in Dublin or Cork, but that is what has been done.

If the Government wants the support of the common man, it needs to live its political ethics, ideals and history, and to stop acting like the government of Ballymagash. The Government is letting entire regions stew in their anger. It is likely, when served, these dishes will be best served cold.

In my 20 years in politics, I have often been compared with a particular British politician, but Jeremy Corbyn is not the one.

It is a first.

This is the first time I have been compared with or aligned to him, as a politician. I know I have moved to the centre in my middle age. I did not think I had moved quite that far left, but I thank the Deputy for giving us something to ponder.

The Deputy is right to say my party has been in office in various coalitions since 2011. We have not achieved everything we sought to achieve, but on the basis of any objective analysis, our country is a much better place than it was back then. We have gone from mass unemployment and mass youth unemployment to full employment. We have gone from a situation where representatives from the IMF were staying in the Merrion Hotel and calling the shots to one where we are in charge of our own affairs again and can make choices. Our public finances are in good order. Educational attainment for children and young people has never been better. Our life expectancy has never been longer. I hope we all agree the UN does not vote for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil or the Green Party and is objective. The UN consistently rates us as one of the top ten countries in the world in terms of human development. That is not to diminish in any way the very real challenges we have, particularly in relation to the housing shortage and access to healthcare.

I responded to some valid and correct facts Deputy Harkin put forward with facts that were also correct. There is a tendency in this House for people to choose their facts. I think it is okay to respond with other things. So long as they are facts and not opinions, we should be able to share them. You get a better picture if you look at them in the round, rather than at one set of facts that is put out there to support a particular argument.

I do not think Deputy Shanahan was here, but Deputy Howlin was and I could see him nodding when I made the point that, while Deputy Harkin made an articulate case for greater investment in the north west, which she feels is the region that has been particularly neglected, there were Deputies here from the south east who would make the same case for their region. I had Deputy Shanahan and all the Deputies from the south east in mind, because everyone makes the case for their own region.

The truth is that achieving balanced regional development is difficult. Austria has similar challenges with Vienna. Denmark has a similar challenge with Copenhagen. Having one big city of international scale and other large cities while trying to achieve balanced regional development is a dilemma and struggle for any small country with a big city in it. You see that all over the world. For Britain, for example, the exact same dilemmas and difficulties arise in respect of London. However, we have a programme that I believe is achieving much more balanced regional development. It includes: the national broadband plan, which is the biggest single capital investment in the history of the State; the roads programme, which is almost all outside of Dublin and Cork, certainly outside of Dublin; and the technological universities, which I am committed to and which are making a difference in many regions.

The Taoiseach may recall that when Deputy Micheál Martin was first nominated for Taoiseach, I said I would not support the nomination as a protest against the lack of 24-7 cardiac care. I did say I looked forward to engaging with the Government in a programme that showed equity and transparency at its core.

The south east has 11% of this nation’s population. I challenge the Taoiseach to show me any year from 2011 to today when 11% of State capital funding has come into the region. I would even challenge him to show me when 5% came in. There is no doubt there is a significant disparity. What Deputy Harkin highlighted yesterday I highlighted to the Tánaiste last week, showing discretionary spending for the south east was 40% lower than for the east coast and south west. Those are international, irrefutable facts.

When the current corporation tax feeding frenzy is over, what will the south east have in terms of strategic infrastructural delivery to point to? I see nothing spent on the N24 and N25. There is talk of action in respect of the university but nothing has been spent on it. Not a building will be constructed there in five years to either accommodate students or facilitate them being taught. Our model 4 regional hospital is not funded like its peers. There are no demonstrated improvements to our agricultural sector, which will suffer extremely badly in the next couple of years. Our fledgling aviation sector has received no support. The Taoiseach visited Waterford in 2017. At that stage, the Government could have funded it for a quarter of the current price. That is the cost of not delivering.

When you look at Government spending, you cannot just look at capital expenditure; you also have to look at current expenditure. That covers areas like social protection, education and healthcare. Most of our spending is current, not capital. When you look at capital projects, you cannot just look at the ones valued at more than €200 million. You have to look at them in the round.

Of course, the smaller projects go to the more rural counties and we cannot discount them.

To answer the question on what I think the south east will have in the next five or ten years, it will have much better roads. I was in the south east yesterday and travelled on some of the roads. They have already improved dramatically - just look at Enniscorthy and New Ross. There is more road investment to come. There will be much better jobs, which we see happening already, in particular in Waterford city with increased investment from multinationals. That will be a real positive. The university will be expanded. As the Deputy knows, we are in negotiations to secure the Waterford Crystal site. We are nearly there. There will be a new engineering building and on-campus accommodation. We will do our best to make sure that we can get the airport operating again, willing to provide matching finance for that, and that still stands. Of course, implementation of the national broadband plan will bring high-speed fibre to every home, farm and business in every county in the south east and everywhere in Ireland and that will be transformative. We are probably one of only three countries in the world that will achieve that.