Phoenix: Deny, delay, defend?
Is that where we are? Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien, such a nice man, responsible for airports, who originally funded the North Quays, came back with his hands hanging to walk across the nearly completed Clock Tower Bridge. “Journey into Space”?
Asked by the Waterford News & Star why his Department dropped the Waterford/Rosslare Railway line from medium-term plans, Minister O’Brien said: “I don't see it as dropped (deny) or postponed. I wasn't happy how it (defend) was communicated, I'll be very honest.
"Both Mary (Butler), John (Cummins) and I discussed that.”
They discussed it, and then dropped it? Plans to refurbish the Waterford-Rosslare railway line were included in the previous government’s 2024 Strategic Rail Review. Those same plans were excluded (delayed) from the 2025 ‘prioritisation strategy’.
Meanwhile, the Waterford /Dublin train takes over two hours to travel 99 miles. Waterford projects are never “dropped” by government, just kicked into the hedge.
The Irish Times editorial of Tuesday, February 3, suggested a “softening” in the labour market. Locally, we see the Unemployment Live Register (for all its faults) listed 5,456 people in December 2025, compared to 5,293 in December 2024, an increase of 163, for the whole of Co. Waterford, population 127,000.
The CSO, Live Register (December 2025) figures for all Co. Limerick are 6,730, population 210,000, for all Co. Galway 7,942, population 278,000, and for all Co. Cork 14,161, population 584,000.
You don’t have to be a statistician to see something wrong here.
The South East Economic Monitor (SEEM) report has shouted it for years. The Fine Gael/government waffle response is “Waterford, third highest for job growth in 2025.”
The percentage of Waterford’s population on the Unemployed Live Register is 4.3, Limerick 3.2, Galway 2.8 and Cork 2.4.
Cartamundi closed, redundancies at Garrett Advanced Motion, Amgen (What engagement, if any, has the IDA had, to offer the plant among its possible opportunities?) to close its small pharma unit here beginning April and move production to Dublin.
No one is panicking, but the job market here is “softening” from a relatively weak position, while in our once peer cities, any decrease is from a position of absolute strength.
When was the last IDA/FDI capital-intense, new company set up in Waterford? Galway has 25,000 people in medical devices industries. Cork has 6,500 in Apple alone. A lot of softening there before reaching the bone!
The North Quays, surgical hub and new SETU engineering building are our last government projects and hardly amount to a treasure trove. Where’s the new stuff, the new investment, the new projects?
The IDA dropped 800 medical devices jobs on Kilkenny, a county with very low Live Register, but doesn’t even have a strategic site for new industry in Waterford, the National Development Plan’s “designated driver” of regional growth.
The damage done to Waterford’s role by a biased FDI policy and by low state investment has been immense.
Waterford is being gaslit by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government. There is no fat on our economy as is obvious from local retail footfall.
UK NGO “Centre for Cities” research points out that disposable income, not urban beauty, is the main discriminant for retail footfall.
In our case, the SEEM report has clearly stated we have high employment, at relatively low income levels, thus, low disposable income.
Minister Mary Butler, our senior politician, is absolutely silent about her hopes for Waterford. Sinn Fein has woken up to the facts (better late than never) that Matt Shanahan expounded for five years as a TD: Waterford is at the bottom of the funding tree for most things. Can Ms Butler do anything about it? If not, the future is bleak.
UHW is the south east’s regional Model 4 tertiary hospital and the lowest resourced Model 4 in the country.
It now, shockingly, has the poorest access in the country for chemotherapy and breast cancer surgery.
Ms Butler “welcomed” two basic OPD prefabs erected outside the hospital ED in 2022. A proper new OPD (Wejchert Architects) was on the stocks under Covid derogation (no planning required) but was cancelled. Not a single UHW or Waterford HSE priority has advanced to planning permission stage in the past year.
Large projects were built in St Luke’s Hospital Kilkenny and Clonmel. A seven-level multi-storey car park is nearing completion in Wexford General Hospital to make way for a six-storey 100-bed ward extension. Everyone welcomes every cent in health spending in this region, but UHW is the regional, tertiary referral hospital?
The UHW Pathology Lab extension being built is a relatively small project. The new Surgical Hub under construction is external to the hospital. Similar hubs are being provided around the country, so it does nothing to bridge the resources gap between UHW and other Model 4 hospitals.
For Heaven’s sake, Ms Butler is a senior Fianna Fáil TD and Department of Health minister. What is going on?
She must understand the import of the failure to promote Waterford projects? She meets the Minister for Health daily and must be able, as chief Whip, to insist on Waterford projects advancing, at the very least, to the planning permission stage?
There is no satisfaction for anyone in ad hominem comment on the minister’s ability, but the HSE Capital Plan literature is full of Waterford projects stalled for years at “appraisal” stage, awaiting funding.
Minister Cummins and not Minister Butler recently announced 24/7 cardiology would commence in June 2026. While we await developments, just ask yourself why was that? Mr Cummins also recently announced a funding allocation to bring major SETU Waterford projects to the planning permission stage.
Ms Butler may have a free page here to lay out her priorities and timelines for Waterford's acute, community and mental health HSE projects. No questions asked. Her local party organisation should insist on it. Just do it, but don’t have us forever hanging around the back of the queue hoping for crumbs from the “Great Cork Leader” Micheál Martin, who won’t be Fianna Fáil leader next year anyway.
Has Ms Butler’s loyalty to party and Taoiseach Martin been abused? Well, the government’s e-tenders website is replete with HSE tenders big and small over the past year, for projects everywhere except Waterford. Does that suggest loyalty being repaid?
