Phoenix: One plus one equals one?

That’s the question many people in Waterford are asking themselves this week. Do two ministers of state equal one senior minister?

Last week Mary Butler was announced as government chief whip and Minister of State for Mental Health and John Cummins was announced as Minister of State for Local Government and Planning. 

As the dust settles and the predictable controversy over cabinet gender equity rumbles on, it is genuinely obvious that nationally, many people expected Mary Butler to be Minister for Children. Think what you like of the woman, but she would have done that job well. 

Politicians must put a brave face on things, as Ms Butler did, and loyalty to the process trumps everything, but it’s a profound disappointment. Taoiseach Micheál Martin could have picked anyone of his male ministers as chief whip. That especially applies to Wexford TD James Browne who is 10 years younger than Ms Butler and lives closer to the capital. 

There is a body of opinion in Waterford that this is Cork influence again, cutting the legs from under Waterford aspirations. 

Micheál Martin knows full well that Waterford desperately wanted a seat at cabinet. Local opinion, post Martin Cullen, knows the score. The pros in favour outnumbered the cons, but the Taoiseach didn’t do it. 

I doubt we will have long to wait to see the way the wind is blowing.

John Cummins has made an extraordinary breakthrough in being appointed as Minister for State in his first Dáil term. If grit, determination and hard work mean anything, then he fully deserved it and it opens up the possibility of a high-level career while Fine Gael are in power. His family is delighted, as are his many supporters. 

He ploughed on relentlessly as city councillor and as a senator, brooking no criticism of his beloved party and attempting to convince us that everything in the garden was rosy in Waterford. 

Of course it isn’t, but he satisfied political Rule 1: Get yourself elected. 

Now comes the hard part, to deliver on expectations he has created around his stated access to power and ability to deliver. He and Ms Butler carry the hopes of this city with them.

Above all else, Cummins and Butler must know that there is hardly a single person in Waterford who believes that this city has been treated the same as Limerick or Galway over the past 14 years of Fine Gael government and nine years of Fianna Fáil coalition. There is a well of discontent. 

North Quays investment notwithstanding, I defy anyone to carry out a vox pop on the subject in Waterford. 

John Cummins is an alumnus of University of Limerick. When he started his studies there, UL was give or take the same size as WIT. Now, UL is more than twice the size of Waterford’s share of SETU. 

We have lost the independent third-level college we had. It was sacrificed by Fine Gael on the altar of regional political consideration. 

New courses in Vet Medicine and Pharmacy give hope for the future and Prof Campbell and her team are determined to succeed, but Waterford is again starting from behind. 

Nothing has been built at WIT/SETU Waterford for nearly 20 years. This has created crucial deficits and the proposed new engineering building, first promised in 2008, with planning in 2009, has still not started construction despite government go ahead in December.

UHW has seen a welcome uptick in staff and budget, a new surgical hub and extension to the pathology lab are under construction, but it is still the poorest resourced Model 4 hospital in the state. 

We still await 24/7 cardiology, and the announcement of an 8 to 8 seven-day service was unannounced last week. The hospital needs major physical investment and a new management structure with a CEO. 

Funding for our airport and port is non-existent while the state spends hundreds of millions in Cork and Rosslare ports. Dublin Port has designs on every ton of shipping cargo entering the country and its ambition is enabled by an almost monopolistic market position. 

Waterford’s share of incoming FDI compared to Limerick or Galway is abysmal. The loss of a large medical devices investment was directly attributed to the lack of an IDA strategic site in this area. These deficits must be tackled quickly if our city is to be resilient.

One recent comparison serves. The Department of Health has paid out €47 million to consultancy firms on the long-awaited National Maternity Hospital (NMH) in Dublin 4, even though work has yet to start on the 224-bed facility. 

Figures show a total outlay of €124 million in construction costs relating to the project. A best guess suggests the €124 million, for one proposed Dublin hospital, exceeds the total expenditure on UHW over the past 20 years. 

Capital investment at UHW for the 10 years 2013 to 2022, including the Dunmore Wing, was €67.2 million according to the HSE.

Anyone awake knows we live in a troubled world. Ireland is economically very heavily dependent on investment from the USA. The advent of the second Trump presidency and that man's stated MAGA policies have created enormous unease in government circles. 

Does he really mean to bring all US pharma and tech investment in Ireland back home? Who knows? Given his welter of Executive Orders on almost every subject and given people he has around him, Ireland Inc. must ready itself for stormy waters. 

Trump is an existential threat to Ireland’s economic model and our prosperity. We have the fiscal ability to ride out a storm for some period of time. Strategic investments in hospitals, third level facilities, ports, airports, roads etc., are essential, as is an understanding that the necessary investment cannot all be directed to Dublin and Cork and to a lesser extent, Limerick and Galway. 

Already, rumours abound that future IDA policy will concentrate on three super industrial estates at undisclosed locations around the country. This kind of stuff may appeal to mandarins in Merrion Street, but our elected politicians and in particular those at ministerial level, like Ms Butler and Cummins, have to ensure we get an equitable portion of what’s going. We have lost the taste for crumbs.