Extracting the urine

The Dáil is in recess, it’s hard to pin government down on anything, but evidence that we are being taken for a ride keeps emerging. School’s out, people want to talk about sunshine, beaches and heat waves. Every place looks well and relatively prosperous in the fine weather, but the iron law ”it’s the economy stupid” prevails. If Nietzsche caused a stir by writing “God is dead”, one wonders how we should respond to “government just ignores us”? 

Must we wait until we are economically dead? Figures provided by the Minister for Further Education to an SFTD Conor McGuinness PQ, show SETU received €3.35 million in direct capital funding during 2025, the lowest such funding of any technological university in the State. SETU has received the lowest cumulative level of direct capital funding since the university was established. How will this be a game-changer? Last week, government prioritised nine major infrastructure projects around the country, none of them in Waterford or the south east. If there are no ready to go state projects in this area, how can they be prioritised? It’s the eternal chicken and egg lack of political influence.

Meanwhile, national papers carry news that Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, granted, our national theatre, will be redeveloped at a cost of, wait for it, €500m. Not €50m, its €500m. Squandermania! It’s no surprise to read that the railway line from Dublin to Balbriggan will be upgraded at a cost of €1 billion or that Metro North is coming in at cost north of €20billion, while the bastardi in the Dept. of Transport, FF’s Minister Darragh O’Brien in charge, could not find €12m in matching funding for Waterford Airport. The money is there, but the second word of the government’s message to M/s Butler and Cummins and us, was…off!

Local media headlines trumpets “Preliminary works begin on major Waterford wastewater upgrade.” The small print says “once the design stage is complete (no timescale provided), the project will move on to the statutory, regulatory and funding approval process before any construction can begin". Each small step of years’ long labyrinthine, government procurement and funding processes is announced as evidence of activity. We’re worse to pay attention to this manufactured, news spin of pseudo progress. The only question is, has work started? But then, politicians must be seen to be doing something.

For the Nth unhappy time: there is no current major Waterford project in road, rail, water, airport, port, third level, acute or community medicine, or FDI at the planning or tender stage. Suck that lemon for a while. The situation with our historic Newtown School, waiting years for the go ahead for a vital extension, is emblematic of a cancerous antipathy in government. It is extraordinarily hard to progress local projects. They simply are passed over as our local ministers look on. The Minister for Education bumped a tranche of her own Galway constituency school projects to the top of the pile when she took office. Newtown School still waits. Think of the implications of that while eating your seaside fish and chips.

On the home front, people speak of contacting Ministers Butler or Cummins with problems which were subsequently addressed and solved. Just like a €500k grant for the Millennium Plaza, that’s sweating the pennies. It’s a TD’s bread and butter. How was a beautiful, 25 year old facility allowed deteriorate to such an extent? It’s the infrastructural biggies in health, education and FDI that we’re missing out on, the stuff that builds a future for our children in this area. The failure to fund future Waterford health projects made explicit in the HSE Capital plan is horrendous and the blame rests entirely with Minister Mary Butler. The minister just doesn’t get it. Local FF will defend her inability to the last.

Decent housing, which we’re getting someway right, is vital, but what exactly will underpin the local economy? What industry, business or income? Glacial delay with Harcourt Developments and its knock on for the North Quays is undermining public confidence in council and city, and providing a soft target for the naysayers. Sure, the new pedestrian bridge and south quays plaza are lovely, but the bridge is unopened and the clock tower out of action. Is anyone in council capable of grabbing the latter, tiny example of bureaucratic insensitivity and moving it on? If there are any further delays with Harcourt, they should be told goodbye and the whole site turned into a riverside park. Finish the bridge, open access to Ferrybank and let future sequential site development fall where it may. That would be a whole lot better than a deserted building site and eternal delay!

People now wonder if our constituency is being punished for our voting choices. We wait twenty years for investment in WIT (among other issues). We complain and elect an SF deputy as a protest. Nothing improves. Next election, we are offered only two mainstream government candidates who are duly elected. We elect two SF candidates as a protest against non-delivery and are seemingly punished for that protest vote, as capital spending is withheld. Whatever it is, it’s killing us? Are we being taught a very public lesson about the impact of our voting choices on government capital funding to prevent further SF electoral “contamination”? What did Voltaire say when Admiral John Byng was executed “Pour encourager les autres?” In order to encourage the others!

A local trucker, recently delivered new machinery to Parkmore Industrial Estate in Galway from Port of Waterford. He came back home gob smacked by the level of investment and development there, simply saying, “We’re miles behind”! It’s becoming really noticeable folks and the ramifications for Waterford’s place in the national urban standings and consequential investment based on that, are dreadful. Neither FF or FG gives a shite, they have their two secure seats. Public investment drives private confidence and investment. Waterford people know there is something wrong. The present government has dismally failed to front up any current Waterford project. Systemic political unfairness is at play. It will not be solved by Chief Whip Butler announcing future projects, only to hear, years later, as with promised developments at UHW, that they are not progressing. The minister just does not get it