The Status Quo?

While Mary Butler’s appointment as government chief whip with added responsibility for disability is positive, there is real disappointment in Waterford that she did not get the cabinet seat her service and longevity demanded. 

Her south eastern colleague James Browne, of Wexford, got the nod. Some callers to RTÉ radio last week expressed anger over her omission and the gender imbalance in the FF cabinet, albeit the post is an immense personal achievement for Ms Butler. Her position is actually Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach. The Chief Whip attends cabinet as a super junior minister, but does not have a vote. 

You are in the room where decisions are made. Bertie Ahern and Dara Calleary were also chief whips in their time. Calleary accepted the role in 2020, but publicly acknowledged that he was "angry and disappointed" not to have been offered a departmental portfolio. Diligence and loyalty to Micheál Martin and to the Fianna Fail party has partly paid off for Mary Butler. Not many people would ever have expected her to rise so far. 

It is an onerous position with some influence, which may yield dividends. Let’s see what Ms Butler makes of it. The expectation in Waterford of delivery especially in health and further education, of projects which have suffered interminable and deeply unfair delay, is enormous. Early progress is required to show cause. 

As a corollary, there is now a very strong expectation that new Fine Gael TD John Cummins must be given a heavyweight junior ministry to balance the books. Mr. Cummins was not shy in painting himself, pre-election, as in line for promotion. 

If it does not happen, people will rightly ask just what Waterford achieved in casting out vocal TD Matt Shanahan who would surely have been in government, in favour of a party representative?

Nine years ago Ms Butler and Taoiseach Micheál Martin stood outside UHW bearing the now infamous sign that ”FF would deliver 24/7 cardiology to Waterford”. Last week the HSE finally announced that for the first time ever, a seven day, 8 am to 8 pm cardiology service at UHW would commence shortly. 

This is especially welcome bearing some recent cases in mind, where very urgent patients were shipped to Cork for treatment. Local UHW cardiology staff believe the announcement is a vital step along the way to full 24/7. 

The number of cardiology procedures (emergency and elective) at UHW is broadly similar to those in CUH, yet the latter hospital has four cath labs and twelve cardiologists. A seven day service allows UHW to establish the true level of demand for interventional cardiology. In the dark days of 2013 and 2014, when an all-out attack was being made on such services (and others) at UHW, you may remember the charade over procedure numbers there. 

The national cardiology team did not include the full number of procedures completed at UHW in their annual reports for several years because the “UHW computer could not talk to the HSE HIPE computer”. Decisions were shamefully being based on incomplete data.

I understand that eminent senior UHW cardiologist, Paddy Owens, will shortly step back from his lead role there. He deserves the freedom of Waterford city. Were it not for him and Doctors Rob Landers, Mark Doyle, Aidan Buckley from Wexford, and Niall Colwell in Clonmel, we would be facing the terrible journey to Cork with no emergency cardiology at UHW at all.

 Those men stood up and were counted when it was neither profitable nor popular in the HSE to do so. You may remember them going to Dublin to lobby for services in UHW and being lambasted as parish pump medics by hacks in the national media who took their briefing from the Department of Health!

The delay in funding real investment for UHW, one of nine Model 4 hospitals in the country, has been shameful. Small projects have been our constant lot. The recent report of the HSE Health Forum South provides an update on UHW capital projects: 'The Surgical Hub construction project at University Hospital Waterford (UHW) is due for completion by mid-2026. 

A design team has been appointed to construct (When?) a new 96-bed inpatient block at UHW including a link to the existing hospital. Work is ongoing on an extension for additional laboratory facilities. A new development control plan for the UHW complex is being prepared.' These are not enough!

Extra UHW beds have been talked about for years, yet when the opportunity arose with 295 new beds to be provided around the country this year, UHW got none. Fourteen were announced for Kilkenny. 

Does the HSE estates office in Kilkenny, which services capital developments in Waterford, push UHW projects? The HSE 2025 National Service Plan, published two weeks ago says they will 'Progress with the development of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital Drogheda and University Hospital Waterford as trauma units due to their identification as those most to be impacted by future bypass protocols, with an associated anticipated increase in trauma patient volumes to be seen in the emergency department of each hospital'. 

The extra beds, the long awaited new Adult Mental Health Unit, the vertical OPD etc. all await sanction. Ms Butler was a minister in the Dept. of Health in 2023 when no capital funding at all was committed to UHW. 

In 2022, the vertical OPD was ready to go with the job being priced by a contractor who had a tower crane erected on site, but the project was pulled. Decisions like this are intolerable, especially as the capital funding deficit at UHW is enormous. On a wider note, the proposed new engineering building at SETU was passed by government a month ago. 

When will that commence to end the 20 year drought of new buildings there?

Meanwhile, 300 jobs are to go at BNY Mellon in Wexford to follow the 234 that went without comment at Carta Mundi, Waterford. Coupled with the Amgen/Horizon move from Waterford to consolidate at their south Dublin facility plus the expansion of WEST Pharma in Dublin instead of Waterford, it paints an unhealthy picture of the IDA’s commitment. Waterford needs political influence. Have we got it?