Phoenix: Bursting at the seams

That’s part of a recent Irish Times article by Justine McCarthy, who argued that Ireland’s west coast needs a sixth city, arguably Sligo, to rebalance development across the country. The solution is obvious, posits Ms McCarthy who suggests that Sligo already operates as a city and is described as such by many of its inhabitants, rather like Kilkenny, even though neither sit in legal metropolitan areas (Waterford city does!) 

Newspaper correspondence suggested that Athlone might fit the bill. Both towns, Sligo and Athlone, have low 20,000 populations, as indeed has Kilkenny. Drogheda, a much more muscular town than the other three, has pitched for city status for some years, with some justification. 

But what is city status? Historically, any town with a cathedral, a castle or town walls and some form of local government administration was a city and one can see that in Wells in Somerset in the UK, which has city status with a population of around 11,000. It’s a lovely place, by the way. 

In the UK, city status must be conferred on a town by the monarch. In Ireland, it’s unclear. The reality is that Irish cities are drivers of the regional economy and must be the focus of state investment, which induces private investment, to perform that role adequately.

The Times article attracted a letter from Sligoman Tom Tiernan, of Ennis, Co. Clare, who closely argued that rather than focusing on a single town or area, that “all regions of the country must be part of the solution and must benefit from whatever evolves to deal with the Dublin problem. There is little point in having a regional strategy, as the government claims to do, unless it’s seriously acted upon and implemented in a meaningful way.” 

Mr Tiernan drove home that point saying, “There is no serious suggestion anywhere that the country’s regional development strategy is being proactively pursued by government." 

Why is it, he asks, "that 50% of the jobs facilitated by IDA clients are located in Dublin, that every new air route into the country must be crammed into an already overwhelmed airport, or that many benefits of focused regional development across the country are not being availed of?” 

There is no equity, no apolitical delivery of state investment in this country! Every cent goes through the cabinet meat grinder, with Dublin an absolute winner. Provincially, Limerick and Galway have visibly risen on a tide of state investment. Cork, especially, has been transformed by its political heft and status as our second city. Waterford, the republic’s fifth city, could accept the tsunami of state funding to Leeside without demur had we a reasonable share of what’s going, but Micheál Martin’s blinkered view never stretches this far. 

The SETU compiled South East Economic Monitor (SEEM) report has shown the lack of fairness ad nauseam. Don’t ask what government says, watch what they do. The failure to fund a joint venture runway project at Waterford Airport, while mouthing pathetic excuses about business cases and procurement processes, is an instructive albatross around Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil necks. Never forget!

Meanwhile, IDA Ireland secured a total of 323 investments during 2025, representing a 38% increase on 2024. It was the highest number of projects on record secured by the agency. These projects are expected to deliver over 15,300 new jobs in the coming years. 

One of those 323 projects came to Waterford as, “The Irish Government and IDA (June 2025) welcomed IBM’s announcement to create additional high-value jobs. The leading global technology company, over the next three years, will hire up to 75 software engineers based in Waterford, dedicated to research and development.” 

Great news, but where are the rest? Is one out of 323 a fair share, considering that the Amgen pharma company is simultaneously moving its Waterford plant to Dun Laoghaire? 

The IDA figures remind us that 224 new hospital beds have been provided in UH Limerick since 2024, while none have been provided in UH Waterford. Every ready-to-go HSE project in Waterford has been pulled. The UHW stroke unit situation alone is particularly serious. Not a public word about it from our four silent TDs.

No one here, except party members, believes that Micheál Martin has done a fair job for Waterford. Does the fault for that lie with his amanuensis, Chief Whip Mary Butler, who has been singularly unable to focus the lens of government in this direction? For what it’s worth, Simon Harris and Fine Gael view Waterford, if they think of us at all, as an afterthought among Irish cities. 

The regular regurgitation by both government mainstream parties of three “last government” projects, as evidence of political goodwill, has become risible. Why Waterford’s two Sinn Féin TDs are not publicly calling out our two local ministers is incomprehensible. Something has to give. 

There is presently not a single government project in acute or community medicine, third-level education, airport, port, railway or FDI at the planning or tender stage in Waterford. Will someone please tell Ministers Mary Butler and John Cummins? There is no serious suggestion anywhere that the country’s regional development strategy is being proactively pursued by government. An academic analysis of the situation, Oh wait, SEEM has done that for years, would show how this government distributes pork barrel funding to its political favourites.

Anyone listening to visitors from outside Waterford who ran the Viking Marathon will have heard them speak very positively of our lovely city. Like all places, Waterford has its faults, its yin and yang, but is, as described some years ago, arguably the best place to live in Ireland. We all see Waterford’s potential, but that has always existed. 

We await a (very) long overdue Irish Times article on Waterford City’s strategic investment needs. While their columnist seeks a new city for balanced regional development, the issues raised by Tom Tiernan and many others must be tackled lest they inevitably destroy social cohesion. Ireland is obscenely Dublin-centred and at a crux in its physical development. This is unlikely to be eased by a tone deaf, politically-biased administration, which directs 56% of national development funding to the 24% of the population who live in Dublin, just to keep the big property values party going there. Ireland must do better.